Safeword: Mayday by Candace Blevins
Chapter 15
Kyle was sitting on his front steps looking sexy as sin in jeans, a tight t-shirt, and sunglasses, the breeze ruffling his hair around his face, when Heather pulled into his driveway the next evening. By the time she’d parked and unfastened her seatbelt, he was opening her door.
She slid out and allowed him to fold her into his arms and hold her a few moments. Just as she was ready to take a step back, he released her, reached to hold her hand, and walked her to his car.
“We’re going out to eat?”
“How does tapas sound?”
Her stomach growled and they both laughed. “You know I’m addicted to their blue cheese thingies.”
“I’ll order you a half a dozen of them as we walk in the door.”
Because his life’s purpose when he was away from work was to make her happy.
Heather had felt a little guilty about that before reading Marcus’s books, but she thought she understood, now.
Just as she hoped he understood why she’d needed the night alone.
“You didn’t think I was rejecting you last night, did you? I was just beat, and needed some time to eat junk food and veg out.”
“I understand, but you can always veg out at my place.”
“Marcus lent me three books, and I managed to read them all during my down time in New Orleans. All three Doms submitted to someone so they could learn how to be a good Dom or Top or whatever. Do you think Marcus is trying to get me to submit to him, or is that kind of a standard thing?”
“I honestly don’t know how standard it is. Have you asked Marcus?”
“No, and I think I want some impartial advice. How would you feel about me talking to my friend Eric?”
He kept his eyes on the road. “Have you and Eric ever been romantic with each other?”
“Nope. He never hit on me, and that was a relief, but before he met Kendra I did wonder why he didn’t, and I guess now I know why. To be honest, I think one of the reasons we’re such good friends is because he’s always treated me with respect, and he never treated me like a girl. I don’t remember him ever making me prove myself to him, either.”
She thought back to their first conversation. “I met him while hang-gliding. We talked a little at the top, and I went just before him. While we put our gliders away, he asked me how I’d done something and complimented me on how easy I’d made another move look. He didn’t have a problem with asking a small female how to do something, which isn’t the norm. Over the years, we’ve rock climbed, caved, hiked, kayaked, and gone hang-gliding together. I don’t know that we’ve ever sky dived at the same time, but I’ve taken him up plenty of times. That’s the problem with being a pilot — I don’t get to jump as often as I’d like because most of the time I’m the one taking everyone up.”
Kyle glanced at her and then looked back to the road. “If you feel comfortable talking to him about this stuff, I think that might be a good thing. He said you’d once spent a week caving together. Why did you spend so long underground? Did you get lost?”
She shook her head. “We were being paid to map the cave system. We had five people on the team. The geological people hired Eric and I because we’d be able to climb up or down to places they may not be able to get to — and I often get called on for that kind of thing because I’m so small, I can squeeze into tiny places. Plus, since I’m an EMT and have the first responder certification, I can double as climber and medic all in the same person.”
“I’ve never asked you about your finances before, but I’m constantly amazed at some of the things you get paid to do. I know you do okay for yourself — you have your own helicopter, you drive a nice car, you have horses, and all kinds of cool toys like hang-gliders and kayaks. You have to be spending a ton of money traveling around the world to do some of the adventurous things you do. I enjoy what I do, but it’s my job — not what I do for fun. You get paid to have adventures, and you apparently make a damned good living at it.”
She shrugged. “There’s still a difference in the things I do for fun and the things I get paid to do. I mean, on that caving trip, Eric and I couldn’t just take off in any direction we wanted. The geologists took our recommendations into account, but they were the ones deciding which areas to investigate and survey, and that kind of exploration involves lots of picture taking and notes and measurements. Take yesterday, for instance. I flew some people to New Orleans, sat around on the plane all day while they visited job sites and went to meetings, and then I flew them home last night and handled the paperwork. There’ve been times I’ve rented my own car and explored a town if it’s some place I haven’t been before or haven’t had a chance to explore, but most of the time I do what I did yesterday — sit on the plane and find something to do. I almost always have work to do — catching up on emails, or researching for an upcoming trip, reading about the latest equipment in one of my sports — but still, on those days it’s my job to fly them there as comfortably as possible. I can’t play around with the plane. Most people’s definition of a good pilot is one who gives them a smooth ride, and not someone who hot dogs. I’m just a really well-paid chauffeur to them.”
“But the caving trip was still fun though, right? Exploring a place you’d never been before? Do you get paid well for that kind of thing, or just a pittance? And I’ve heard you talk about the construction company’s plane, how nice it is to fly. So it’s still a good experience, right?”
“Yes, it’s still something I enjoy doing and it’s another plane I can add to my list. And yes, on that particular caving trip Eric and I were paid quite well, plus all our expenses were taken care of, and I ended up with some cool equipment that they let me keep, since some of it was custom sized for me. We had a lot of interesting experiences on that trip, but we also had to be the professionals they expected us to be.”
“You’d be comfortable talking to him about sex?”
“Not sex, exactly, but I’d feel comfortable asking him about what it takes to be a good Dom. Also, from what I’ve been able to tell from my internet searches, masochistic Dominants aren’t exactly a common occurrence. Eric is familiar with the extra steps I have to take to be safe since I don’t feel pain. You saw him help me Sunday, when I needed to figure out whether I’d injured something. I’ve had to explain it to him since we’ve spent so much time in the middle of nowhere together. Since he’s already part of the lifestyle, I don’t think it’ll take much to explain it’s not really masochism for me, it’s just what I need in order to be interested in, well, sex.” She sighed. “Okay, so I guess I will need to feel comfortable talking to him about sex.”
She waved her arms and fingered her hair back away from her face. “I don’t know. I’d just like to have someone else to talk to, and since Eric happens to be a Dom and he’s also a good friend, it kind of makes sense that maybe he’d be a good sounding board.”
“Whatever you feel is necessary — I trust you and your judgement. I could tell the two of you were comfortable with each other.” He caressed her thigh. “I almost jumped him when he took you to the ground, but Marcus waved me back, and I guess I’m glad he did. Are you okay with him knocking you to the ground like that?”
She put her hand on his. “Like I said, Eric’s never treated me like a girl. If I’m going to dish it out then I have to be okay with taking it. He took me down because I took him down. I started it, and I can’t very well pull the girl card one minute and then be upset when I get treated like a girl the next.”
“In a way, I guess I’m a little jealous of him. He does all of this stuff with you, stuff you love to do.”
She pulled his hand to her lips and kissed the back of it. “Kyle, I love you. It’s okay that you don’t enjoy doing everything I do. Really. I spent years trying to bury my true feelings for you because I was afraid of losing your friendship if I let things progress. And now here we are, and I’ve actually had a few orgasms. You and Marcus have shown me I’m not completely broken in the sex department. Do you have any idea what a gift that is? I’m going to have to come to terms with…” She waved her arms around again. “It feels wrong to have these kinds of feelings for two guys at the same time, and I’m not really sure what’s going to happen with that.” She sighed and asked the question she’d been putting off. “Can I ask about Mira? Was she submissive to him? How involved in their… I mean, were you… did you have sex with them?”
“Mira was…” he sighed. “Marcus completely skipped over the pet category, didn’t he? It kind of falls between submissive and slave, I guess. The Dom dotes on the pet, but the pet has to do everything they’re told. Mira was a treasure, but she didn’t have a dominant bone in her body. When I was seeing someone, the four of us sometimes spent time together in the playroom, but I wasn’t part of their relationship.”
“And now he’s looking for someone who isn’t Mira?”
“He loved her, and she was clearly a pet, rather than a slave. He’d been involved in TPE relationships enough to know it was his preference, but she was a surgical nurse at a different hospital, so she worked long hours during the week, but she was off evenings and weekends. With her schedule, even if she’d been a slave, he’d have had to hire someone to handle yard work and laundry and cooking duties. She was more than happy to come home and take on her role as his pet, and he adored her, so it worked.”
Kyle looked at her, then back to the road. “He moved next door to me after she died, and jumped back into the lifestyle full steam ahead, but only with women who identified as slaves.” He gave a small shrug. “A few submissives who were extreme masochists, but no pets. At first, it felt like he was going after his own full-time extreme slave as kind of a consolation prize, but after the first year and a half, it stopped feeling like that. He has a therapist, and I know he went twice a week for a while, then once a week, and now I think once every other month. It took a while, but he seems to have worked through his grief and come out mostly okay.”
“I can’t let Marcus settle for what I am. If he needs a slave, he can’t decide I’ll do. I care about him, and I’m conflicted enough about that without thinking he’ll settle for less than he wants because I can’t be a slave.”
“I don’t think Marcus would try to make you submit to him by pointing out dominants in these books had to do so in order to learn how to be a Dom. It doesn’t feel like him. If he thinks that’s the case, he’ll just come out and tell you. As for feeling conflicted about caring for him? I’d love it if you could ignore what society says is right and wrong, and just go with what feels right. Marcus is important to me, and if the two of you grow close, I’ll be thrilled. If you want to submit to him, whether to experiment with how it feels, or to learn more about submission, I’m perfectly okay with it. I know that what you and I have is real. As long as we all keep talking, and we all take responsibility for our own actions and feelings, everything will be fine.”
“I’ve felt guilty a few times for making Marcus kind of a third wheel, but then I don’t feel comfortable with the three of us in one relationship, either.” She sighed. “And then I miss him when he’s not around. How screwed up is that?”
“I think it’s okay to be conflicted. We’re still figuring this out, still defining how it’s going to work.” He shrugged. “No matter what words we use to define it, it’s okay for you to feel closer to him. If we become a threesome in truth at some point, we’ll figure it out as we go. I don’t think you and I could ever be enough for him. He seems set, this time, on not settling for less than a twenty-four-seven slave he falls in love with, but I think the three of us could be fine in whatever way we’re all comfortable.”
“Several things make more sense to me now that I understand more about you. I wanted you to just get off and get it over with, but you refused an orgasm since I wasn’t having one. I didn’t get that at all — I didn’t understand why it was so important I enjoy myself. I get it now. Your pleasure is all tied up in my pleasure. I’m not sure how this is going to work, with you basically having to do the types of things a Dom enjoys. Are you sure you’ll be okay? Will it give you what you need?”
“Absolutely. If it brings you pleasure, I’ll be all over it.”
“Do you need pain?”
He answered cautiously. “I can handle pain if it’s required of me, and I’ve been taught to eroticize most kinds of pain. Some types I enjoy a great deal, others I can get into if the Top is really into it.” He rubbed her leg again, despite the fact her hand was on his. “I don’t need pain as some submissives do. Mostly, I need someone to allow me to service her, to submit to her. Someone who can take the reins during sex, so I only have to worry about her pleasure. Your pleasure.”
He paused, but Heather could tell he wasn’t finished so she stayed quiet and let him figure out what else he needed to say.
Again, he glanced at her and then looked back to the road. “I’ve never had a D/s relationship that didn’t involve pain, so it’s possible I need it and just don’t realize how important it is? I’ve always assumed it isn’t about masochism, but about the power exchange the pain reflects. It’s like a flag that shows who’s calling the shots, right? So, it’s possible I’ll need it in order to remind me of the power dynamic, but if you aren’t comfortable hurting me, we can work to find other ways to highlight the balance of power.”
“Marcus was right about the fiction books — they helped me understand what you’re saying a whole lot more — the emotions behind submission, the need to submit and to hand over control. I think I can give you what you need, but like you said earlier, it’s going to be a work in progress for a while.”
Kyle parked, took his seatbelt off, and turned towards Heather, “I love you so much, babe. I love that you’re working so hard to learn about this, but I don’t want you to take on too much too soon. We have plenty of time — we can go slow and work up to wherever we end up. Right now, I hear some Blue Puffs calling your name.”
“Mmmm. Blue Puffs. Let’s go.”
* * * *
A tapas meal happens in stages, so Kyle and Heather made it back to his house hours later. Heather had eaten far too much and wasn’t interested in anything physical, but she was up for talking.
She sat on the sofa, content watching him while he selected a playlist. He was so self-confident, so self-aware. She had a hard time putting this Kyle in the same box as the one who couldn’t get near the edge of a cliff. Oddly enough, she had no problems seeing him as submissive though, because he was also confident in his submission.
“In one of the stories I read, the couple filled out a checklist. Do you know what that is? I found a few on the internet. One was ridiculously long, another was super-short. I didn’t know enough to know which was best.”
Soothing music wafted across the room, and he stepped to her. “I have a long one filled out, would you like for the two of us to talk about it? I don’t think you know enough about your own preferences yet to bother, but you can learn a lot just by talking through mine. I only have a few big turn-ons, mostly because whatever does it for me is whatever works for my partner. I have some hard-ish limits. I’ll do them if they’re important to the Top and we’ve developed trust, but…” He looked at his hands. “Things like watersports and needles.”
Heather had no idea what watersports might be, but she had a feeling they didn’t involve a kayak. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, so she asked, “What are your big turn-ons?”
Kyle met her gaze and held it. “I mentioned being made to eat from a bowl on the floor. I can’t explain why, but it’s one of my favorite things. Also, being used as a footstool or table after being plugged and having my cock bound makes me so hard it hurts. In the right circumstances, orgasm denial is a huge turn on, but I’ve also been taken the other way, where I was required to have a large number of orgasms a day or face punishment, and that was also a big turn on.”
“Do you want me to be able to punish you?”
He didn’t hesitate even a microsecond to answer, “Yes, but we’d have to come to an agreement. Specific rules I’ll agree to follow, and then if I don’t follow them you can punish me — but only if you’d enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, it doesn’t do anything for me.”
Heather’s clit throbbed in her dress pants, and she adjusted her legs to try to tame it. “We probably aren’t ready to go solo yet, without Marcus.”
He turned towards her more, but didn’t reach out to touch her. She wanted him to, but it occurred to her he might be waiting for her to make the first move.
“Marcus gave me some ideas in case we want to fool around — things I can do to you, and how to do them so you stay in control.”
Heather squeezed her eyes closed, but then opened them and met Kyle’s gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m making things complicated. I hate being thought of as high maintenance, and that’s how this is starting to feel.”
Kyle shifted closer and wrapped his arms around her. “You are not high maintenance. We’re figuring this out right now, that’s all.” He loosened his embrace but continued to hold her. “If you had to choose between a scenario where I order you to your knees and then you blow me, or where you restrain my hands so I can’t stop you from playing with my cock in any way you want — which would be your choice?”
“That’s kind of a no-brainer, isn’t it? The second. Of course.”
Kyle smiled and kissed her temple. “It’s a no-brainer for someone wired like a Domme, but a sub would choose the first in a heartbeat and think it a no-brainer. The main problem right now is that I’m the sub and I have the experience. However, since I’m a service submissive, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to muddle through without help. With your permission, I’d like to give you a foot massage, my Lady.”
“I thought we were going to look over your list?”
“We can do that if you’d prefer, but it felt like you wanted some time for the two of us, to maybe see how the dynamic will work without Marcus.”
Heather thought back to Kyle in wrist cuffs and how much it’d turned him on. She ran through what she’d learned from the submissives in the novels, and she tapped her foot to the side of Kyle’s. “Do you have wrist and ankle cuffs?”
“No, my Lady, but if you’d like to restrain me I can get you some of my ties. I figure if you trust your knots enough to hold you on the side of a mountain, they’ll hold me in bed.” He brushed her hair away from her face. “But I really want to get you turned on first, and then once I’ve got you horny, you should enjoy tying me up more, my Lady.”
She wasn’t sure how the ties would work, and she didn’t know what he was going to do to try to get her horny, but just in case she might want them later, she said, “Please bring me five ties.”
“Would it be okay if we moved to the bedroom, please?”