Claimed Darker by Em Brown
Chapter 16
BRIDGET
Past
After seeing JD with Hannah, I decide I’m going to press Darren for insight into JD. Having a friendly conversation, even a flirty one, doesn’t mean that JD was doing anything wrong. Still, I owe it to Amy to tell her that I saw him at the club.
Taking a fortifying breath, I step into our room. Amy lies in her bed, still in her pajamas, scrolling through TikTok.
“How you feeling?” I ask her.
“Soooo tired. I don’t know how I’m ever going to make it back to California time,” she replies, putting down her phone.
“Do you have to work tonight?”
“They said I missed too many dinner shifts.”
I stare at her and move to sit on my bed. “So…you’re not working at the restaurant anymore?”
“It was getting in the way of my time with JD. Plus, I don’t like waiting tables all that much, except I did get to meet JD that way.”
I look down in thought. From an upper middle-class family, Amy doesn’t need the money from her waitressing job. She likes having the extra spending cash because she doesn’t think her parents give her enough of an allowance. But she doesn’t seem terribly broken up about losing her job, so I guess I shouldn’t worry about it.
“How was your night with Darren?” Amy asks.
My nipples tingle at the memory of the clamps. I reply, “Great. Um…I saw JD there.”
“Oh, yeah. He called.”
I straighten in surprise. “He did?”
“About half an hour ago. It’s what woke me up. Turns out he couldn’t fall asleep, so that’s why he went to The Lotus. He didn’t want to wake me in case I was asleep. Otherwise he would have suggested we meet up at the club.”
That’s plausible. Maybe I’m being overly suspicious of JD. But what if I’m not off base? Amy should at least know everything I do.
“Did he mention Hannah?” I venture.
Being the bearer of bad news is tricky because Amy might blame the messenger. But since she seems to be sacrificing her job and schoolwork for JD, I want her going into this relationship with her eyes open.
Amy frowns. “Who’s Hannah?”
“A former employee of Darren’s who seemed to be flirting with JD.”
“There are always women flirting with JD.” She sighs. “That’s the drawback of dating someone desirable. I told you about that girl from Cornell who was at the wedding? JD said he talked to her a few times because she seemed lonely.”
“You believe him?”
She hesitates for a second before answering, “Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t not talk to a hot guy just because I’m with JD. It doesn’t mean anything, though.”
“There’s talking and then there’s talking.”
“You think he was talking with Hannah?”
“I can’t say,” I admit. “I wasn’t there for long at all.”
Amy studies me. “You don’t seem a big fan of JD.”
Oh no. I don’t want a guy to be a source of discontent between me and Amy.
“I guess I don’t like the fact that he’s so supportive of Eric Drumm,” I say.
“Well, I don’t say anything bad about Darren.”
Now I feel like a heel for casting doubt on JD.
“You’re free to,” I tell her. “If you see or hear anything about him, I’d rather know than not know.”
“I’ve only heard good things at the wedding. JD’s family and friends like him a lot.”
“Amy, you deserve to be with a great guy, and I’m sorry if I come off critical of JD. I just want to make sure he’s good enough for my girl.”
“Give him a chance. I know his politics are different from yours, but that doesn’t make him a bad person.”
I nod.
“He invited me to the Rai-Rai concert this Friday. Would you and Darren want to join us?”
I hesitate. That’s the night I agreed to go back to the BDSM side of the club and accept my punishment for picking at my stitches. He’s letting me decide which item gets dropped from the list of hard limits. When we talked about it yesterday, instead of getting clarity on which one I’d be willing to try, I only ended up adding more to the list.
“There’s a lot more than what I mentioned on the plane,” Darren said after we were back at his place
“Great,” I replied. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
“You might find one of them more acceptable than what you have on the list now.”
“Like what?”
“We’ve already done some breath play, but there are more specific types of breath play, like choking or waterboarding.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Waterboarding? Like what the CIA did to prisoners in Guantanamo?
“You have experience in this?” I asked.
“I do.”
“Pass. What else is there?”
“Enemas, either for cleansing or for retention as punishment.”
My jaw dropped. “That’s just…crazy.”
“There’s also sounding.”
“What’s that?”
“Inserting a rod, usually surgical steel, into the urethral opening.”
My legs grew weak. “Why?”
“Because there are a lot of sensations there. It’s advanced play, but I think you’d like sounding the most.”
“People actually like all this stuff?”
“Not everyone, but some do. Individual preferences vary. You won’t know for sure till you try it. You’ve liked what we’ve done so far, haven’t you?”
“Yeah. Maybe not at the exact moment we’re doing it. I like the reward part.”
“There’s more, but I have hard limits, too.”
Good God. There’s worse?
I can’t imagine considering anything he mentioned within limits. I’d be crazy to try any of those things. Darren hasn’t steered me wrong so far, but choking and waterboarding sound downright dangerous. I review the other things we talked about before: fisting, age play, electroplay, menage, needle play, golden showers.
I wish there was someone I could talk it through with, but other than Darren, I don’t know who I would possibly consult. I do some research on each kink, trying to find personal experiences, jumping each time it sounds like someone might be approaching me because I do not want them seeing what’s on my computer.
It’s hard concentrating on Poisson distribution curves with needle play images stuck in my head, like the one of a nail hammered into a woman’s breast.
I know I’m not going for menage because I’m not comfortable having sex with strangers, whom I may or may not be attracted to. Darren told me fisting is something that you have to work up to. And although age play sounds fairly benign, I don’t want anything with a pedophile vibe. I’m sure some people can contain the kink in fantasy, completely divorced from reality, but I’m not there.
That leaves electro-play, needle play and golden showers.
I told Darren that next time he gets into a fist fight with someone, I’m not getting involved. I’m not going to risk getting stitches—ever again.
