Lena
Josh hadn’t been at Rack and Ruin two weeks ago, and I’d missed him. Heidi had assured me that he’d had to work, but part of me kept
worrying that he was mad that I’d jumped ship in the middle of our
conversation in his car. I’d left the club early, trying to tell myself I wasn’t moping about his absence.
I pulled on my slinky-kinky new dress and took a few minutes longer than usual over my make-up, then headed out to my car.
Half an hour later, I fiddled with the sleeve of my dress as I walked through the arch into Rack and Ruin’s social space, irrationally nervous and hating it.
He wasn’t here yet. I didn’t know whether I was disappointed or relieved. Either way, I let Izzy grab me and drag me to the bar, returning the greetings of a couple of friends on the way.
Around twenty minutes later, Josh walked in. My heart skipped, and I gave him a quick wave when he glanced our way. He relaxed a little as if he’d been worried I wouldn’t show, and I tried not to grin like an idiot as he made his way over.
“Hey,” he said softly and leaned over to kiss my cheek. The gesture wasn’t lost on the people around us. Why was it that whenever we were together, all eyes were on us? “How’ve you been?”
“Good. Still busy at work?”
“Not so much now,” he said. “You want a drink?”
I accompanied him over to the bar to get the round in, and while we waited for the bartender to fill our order, I told him, “It was weird being here without you last time.”
Josh grinned. “Trying to tell me you missed me?”
“Where were you both two weeks ago?” Ben wanted to know, butting in between us. “Having a little private scene somewhere?”
Josh’s eyes narrowed a little; he and Ben didn’t get on, for some reason I wasn’t privy to. I decided not to ask.
“No. Not that it’s any of your business, but I was working the night shift.” Josh’s words came out more biting than I’d expected.
Ben frowned and backed off. “Okay… Didn’t mean anything by it.”
We both watched him go back to his table and then exchanged glances. “He’s the weirdest guy, sometimes,” I said.
“Uh-huh,” Josh agreed, handing money to the bartender.
After a while, he took Smurfette into the dungeon for a scene, and I sat with Ben and Mel for a while. Something about the way Ben had been fishing made me suspicious.
“So where were you last week, if Josh was working?”
The question came just a couple of minutes into our conversation, and when I saw Mel trying to discreetly nudge him into silence…that just slotted the puzzle piece into place. I’d seen this from them before, in more vanilla terms. Mel had talked my ear off about it for hours back when he’d stolen cash from her to place bets down at the racetrack.
“You’re getting people to bet on us?!”
“Good work there, Ben. Real subtle.” Mel rolled her eyes at her sub.
Rage and nausea warred within me, and I fought the urge to throw my drink at one of them. The only reason I didn’t do it was that I didn’t know which of them I should choose.
“You two are unbelievable.” I bailed on them without another word, marched across the club and into the ladies’ room, figuring that at least I
could get some space from one of them that way.
Mel gave me a couple of minutes to fume before joining me, and by the time she got there, my brain had already jumped to the next big question. The one that made my heart constrict.
“Is Josh in on this?” I demanded, without giving her a chance to
speak. If he was…I couldn’t go any further with him. Not if he was laying bets on when I’d play with him. That was just one step away from betting on when he could get me into bed. I couldn’t go through that again.
“Pay up, man.” A muttered comment almost out of the range of my hearing had made my heart sink. Spinning, I’d caught sight of money
changing hands-from a friend’s fingers into my new boyfriend’s pocket.
It had happened back in my freshman year of college, but all these years later, the memory still burned, my humiliation intense. Even more so when I’d realized I’d just been a conquest to him. Not a real human woman with emotions of her own; just a lay to be used for his egotism and pleasure.
If Josh were doing the same thing… My stomach twisted, and for a brief moment, I thought I might be sick. I’d been so close to trusting him as a Dom, in a way I hardly ever let anyone in anymore. Had I been so wrong about him?
Mel’s eyes widened, and she shook her head emphatically, taking a step forward. “Oh, honey, no. Don’t even think that.”
The thought got to me more than it should have. He was just a guy. I could do without him. But after everything that had happened over the past couple of months, my giving into him had started to become a matter of ‘when’ in my mind, rather than ‘if’. “Would you tell me if he were in on it? How much did you bet?”
Sensing my distress, she pulled me into a hug. I blinked back angry tears against her shoulder as she told me, “Ben has a problem. You know that. We’re seeing the therapist, but now and then he can’t help himself. And I’d never hear the end of it if I didn’t play, so I put ten dollars on the end of next month, to shut him up.”
Ben could be a real asshole when he wanted to be. I’d never understood Mel’s fascination with him, but that was between them. I didn’t have the energy to get into that argument again. “I’ll give you twenty dollars myself, if you play it straight with me. What does Josh know about this? Has he bet on me?”
Mel tugged one of my braids incredulously. “Oh, come on, Lee. I
can see you’re upset. You don’t need to bribe the truth out of me.” Sighing, she leaned against the wall. “Josh knows what’s going on, but he wouldn’t touch it. He seemed more worried that if you found out what we were doing, you’d run from him just to avoid giving us the satisfaction.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed that he hadn’t come to me, or relieved that he’d respected me enough not to bet. I settled on pissed off
with the whole situation. “Well, good…I guess. But damn it, Mel! If I play with him, someone gets a payout. If I don’t, I could be missing the relationship of my life. What am I supposed to do?”
She shrugged. “Play with him a few times away from the club, and don’t tell anyone about it until it’s impossible for anyone to figure out when you started?”
“You know Ben will just pay the person who bet closest to the time when everyone finds out.” Sighing, I checked my eye makeup for smudges, then headed for the door. “I’ll figure it out later.”
Without stopping to say goodbye to anyone, I headed out onto the
street and called a cab as I walked. I didn’t know what I’d have said to Josh if I’d seen him.
* * * *
Josh
Once I’d settled Alex down in the social area of the club after our scene, I headed to the bar to get us both drinks, glancing around for Lena. She was nowhere near the bar, but she’d probably come over later.
‘Later’ came and went, and Alex frowned at me. “Think Lena got jealous and went home?”
God, I hope not. It seemed unlikely, given that she’d already
watched us play, but sometimes people could be unpredictable. “You know her better than I do. You tell me.”
“I’ve never seen her have a drama fit before…but she’s pretty
serious about you.” While I digested that statement, suppressing the smile that wanted to hijack my face, she spun and waved to catch Isabelle’s
attention. “Izz! You seen Lena?”
Frowning, Izzy crossed to sit at our table. “Saw her go outside a
while ago, but she didn’t say goodbye, so I guess she just went to get some air. She’s not back yet?”
What if something had happened to her out there? “Has anyone seen her come back in?”
Before we could even stand up, Mel appeared at my side. “Don’t panic. She just skipped out early.”
Her posture was defensive, and I reacted to it before I could stop myself. “Why?”
She flinched at my harsh tone. “She knows about the betting pool.”
Alex, Izzy, and I shared a moment of silent realization, and then I blanked them out, focusing on Mel with a scowl. “What the hell happened?”
“Ben…was a little too obvious in trying to figure out where the two of you were a couple of weeks ago. Lena knows about his gambling problem, and she puts two and two together. I’m sorry, Josh.”
“When I get hold of him, he’s gonna have more than a gambling problem.”
Mel shook her head, tears in her eyes. “Please… He doesn’t mean to be the way he is. He has an addiction. Don’t hurt him.”
Before I could answer, Alex chipped in. “How did Lena take it?”
“Bad,” Mel said, seeming genuinely guilty. “She wanted to know if you knew.”
“Of course she did,” Izzy said, scowling at Mel. “This isn’t the first time guys have bet on whether they can get her into bed. We went to college together; it happened back then too.”
I closed my eyes for a second, rage welling up within me at the thought of any man wagering on gaining her trust that way.
“She found out?” Alex asked quietly.
“Saw the money changing hands the next day. He’d been playing her for a few weeks, too, waiting for her to give it up. When she took him back to our room, she didn’t mean it to be a one-night thing. She ended it as soon as she realized what a dick he was, though.” Izzy shook her head in disgust. “I swear she’s never been quite the same since.”
Irrationally, I wanted to rip the guy’s head off for hurting Lena. I quelled the impulse and sighed. “So what did you tell her, Mel? When she asked if I knew?”
Mel dropped her gaze, stricken. “I told her you did, but that you wouldn’t bet. She wants to believe me, but I think she’s scared to, in case she gets hurt. Her guard’s way up, now.”
“Ugh.” Alex covered her face with her hands for a few moments, as if getting a grip on her temper. “Keep your idiot sub away from me for a
while, or I might kick his ass myself. Josh, you mind taking me home?”
Alex had been my submissive tonight, and I wouldn’t abandon her, no matter how much I wanted to just get the hell home to think about the
situation. Nodding, I headed past Mel and toward the exit, pausing only to pick up my toy bag.
Alex was quiet on the drive to her place, and when I pulled over on her street, she was frowning down at her hands.
“Hey.”
She glanced up, trying a smile but not quite nailing it. “Subdrop, or just worrying about Lena?”
“A little of both,” she admitted, and I put an arm around her
shoulders, offering whatever comfort I could as a temporary Dom. “Hope our playing tonight didn’t freak her out.”
Something told me that was the last thing I needed to worry about. “We’ll see.”
“You have a pen and paper?” Alex asked.
It took a second for me to process the request; I couldn’t
contextualize it. “Sure.” Reaching into the glove box, I handed her the notebook I kept there, which had already turned into a fresh page.
She scribbled something down, then held it out to me. “Lena’s digits. Don’t call her tonight, but don’t leave it too long. She’s got an overactive imagination. If you give her too much time to think…” Ending the sentence with a shrug, she kissed my cheek. “Thanks for the scene,
Josh. I had a blast. Well, before all this.”
“Call if the drop gets bad,” I told her, and she smiled a little. “Looks like my roommate’s still awake. Don’t worry about me.” “Alex…”
“I’ll call,” she agreed, if only to shut me up. “Goodnight.”
As she left the car and walked up the path to her front door, I stared down at the numbers scrawled across the page. Lena’s phone number. This hadn’t been the way I’d planned on getting it.
I just hoped I could come up with the right words when I called her.
* * * *
Lena
I spent all night picking through the confused tangle of thoughts in my brain, but I didn’t get anywhere, and by the time dawn broke I was just
pissed off. At myself, at Ben, at Mel, at Josh… I knew I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I couldn’t help it.
At around nine in the morning, I finally managed to fall asleep.
My cell phone woke me at a little past one in the afternoon, and I scowled at the caller ID. Mel. I didn’t want to talk to her.
A while later Izzy called, and by five p. m., so had Smurfette and Tamara. I knew they were just worried about me, but in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d placed bets on me. I needed a couple of days to calm down before I got into it with them.
It was just beginning to get dark outside when my cell phone rang again-a number I didn’t recognize. A few seconds after it quieted I got a voicemail alert, and curiosity got the better of me.
“It’s Josh.”
I almost dropped the phone. Of all the things I’d been expecting, a call from Josh hadn’t even been on the list.
The message continued, “Heard what happened last night. I guess we have some talking to do. Call me back.”
I frowned, torn. I wanted to know why he hadn’t told me about the betting, but could I face him right now?
I listened to the message a couple more times, smiling despite myself at the low, familiar sound of his voice. The man turned me to mush…which so wasn’t good. Though at the same time, it was very, very good.
Oh, what the hell. What’s the worst that can happen?
I called him back.