Cries of Penance (11 page)

“You expect Thomas to be away a long time this time, then?” George asks.

There is a long silence but Garrett final y answers, “Yes, a long time. His position in The Attic wil need to be fil ed with a permanent replacement.”

Permanent . He makes it seem Thomas is never returning, but he is. I know he is.

Soft applause erupts around the room, making me realize something is happening, and I sit up on my cushion to see what. My attention is drawn to a smal , intimate stage where it appears a couple is preparing to enact a scene. My mood immediately brightens.

Boredom has not been my friend of late. I like being center stage. I like being on the receiving end of flogger, cane, or candle wax, and being forbidden play since my almost-miscarriage scare, the most I can hope for is watching someone else have fun. I smile, envying the woman being bound.

I recognize the couple as regular players, Jacques and Panda, and although I’ve never met them I’ve heard Master cal him Jako in passing. Onstage, he 97

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bends her over a padded wood sawhorse, stretching her up on tiptoe. He ties her wrists and ankles, then steps back and looks at her. He asks the crowd, “Isn’t she lovely?”

With a press on the remote control he holds in his hand, the raised dais they stand on rotates. He stops it only when she is posed with her bare ass facing most of the crowd. He rubs her bottom, and I can see her tremble lightly. I can say from experience that being so exposed in front of an audience is a very emotional thing. Fear and shame are powerful aphrodisiacs.

Not finished with his ties, he attaches a section of rope to her ponytail and forces her head back, stretching her neck out and forcing her to look forward.

He separates a flogger from his belt and proceeds to warm her bared bottom with soft, thuddy strikes, which leaves her skin a beautiful shade of pink.

God, I can’t wait to play again . With each landing of the leather thongs, my skin reacts with memory. I am left wanting. Needing. I rub against Master’s pant leg and he tousles my hair. “I know, sweetness.”

Our gazes meet and I know he does know, because lust is evident in his eyes. With a heavy sigh, I go back to watching.

Panda’s Master starts teasing her clit with a vibrator, and she starts whimpering. I frown, understanding immediately that she isn’t enjoying being aroused in front of an audience. I think for a moment that she doesn’t want to come with spectators watching, but then Jako uses the remote to revolve them around so that she is facing us.

She looks miserable and terrified, her eyes rol ing back and forth. I wish I could have talked to her before the performance so that I could have told her to 98

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shut her eyes and just enjoy the sensation, but then I think that maybe Jako might have forbidden her from closing her eyes.

He continues stimulating her clit with the vibrator while lightly flogging her ass.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, her nipples start leaking and a tear slides down her cheek. My reaction to her embarrassment is just as astonishing. Heart racing, I want to leave. I don’t want to see this. I didn’t even know Panda was lactating.

Did she have a baby and I not realize?

Jako kneels in front of her and pinches her nipple. A drop of white liquid pearls onto his thumb and laughing, he lifts his wet thumb to her line of vision.

“Look at that luscious milk coming out of you, Panda. See what your arousal does to you?”

She looks like she wants to die of shame.

“Are your breasts feeling tight as your milk drops for me?” He slaps her ass hard, expecting an answer.

“Yes, Master.”

“Tel me you want me to milk you like a cow.”

A sob catches in her throat, but she obeys. “Milk me like a cow, Master.”

“Yes.” He sighs, cupping her breasts, squeezing. “Show the audience what happens when you come for me, little cow.”

He holds the vibrator back to her clit and lightly smacks her breasts with the thongs of the flogger. It doesn’t take long before Panda’s shouts fil the room.

“Please let me come, Master.”

“Not yet. Show them you’re my dairy cow, Panda. Show them how much milk you can squirt for me.”

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He smacks her ass with his bare hand.

Her moan wavers.

“Please, Master,” she begs to come, tears sliding down her cheeks to join the milk dripping on the floor.

“Are you my dairy cow, Panda?”

“Yes, Master. I’m your dairy cow.”

I gasp as milk starts shooting from her breasts. Her scream tel s me that she’s coming, that her body is finding pleasure either because of or in spite of her humiliation. I shudder, not understanding how Jako could put her on display like that if she didn’t want to lactate publical y. I can’t imagine my own Master doing that to me.

Daring to look up at Garrett, I see he is smiling, clapping, enjoying Panda’s humiliation.

Flopping down, I curl into a bal and close my eyes tight. I don’t want to see any more. I thought I’d grown immune to anything that could happen here that I might find unsettling. It doesn’t matter if al of our kinks aren’t the same, right? I wish I knew what Panda was real y thinking, what she is real y feeling. If this wasn’t consensual, I’ve lost any respect I might have ever had for a Dominant I don’t even know. God, please don’t let Master ever get the idea of doing anything like that to me. I pout—disappointed in myself—for passing judgment so quickly.

The scene seemed to begin consensual y, and she does have a safe word.

Even if she had to resort to using the house safe word “alacadabra”, she could have stopped the scene. Master and any number of security would have seen to that.

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Hearing near footsteps, I open my eyes to see Matthew Farris approaching the table. He is Thomas’s inside man, though Garrett isn’t aware of that fact. I know he is Thomas’s eyes and ears while he is away. I know he is also here to protect us. He ducks close to Master and whispers something in his ear.

Whatever he said was lure enough to cal Master away and that makes me slightly nervous. Reason assures me that if had anything to do with Thomas he would have drawn us both away, not just Master.

I dare another peek at the stage and see that Panda doesn’t seem as humiliated as before. She is actual y enjoying the attention Jako is paying her clit with a vibrator. It doesn’t matter. I curl tighter in a bal , stil seeing in my mind the milk seeping from her breasts and the look of horror on her face.

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“ . . . for not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent’s love.”

Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son

“Sorry to disturb, Sir.”

In a private corridor I face Farris impatiently, wanting to get back to Kitten, and instead of him saying whatever he needs to say we are wrapped in this game of verbal protocol. “Is there a good reason for pul ing me way from the night’s entertainment?”

He looks at his shoes, but just for a second, then meets my gaze. It is that gesture that warns me I’m not going to be happy about whatever he has to tel me.

“I need to bring the actions of one of your Dominants to your attention, Sir.”

Great. Already problems with the new hires? I can’t seem to get a break here

. I’m distracted when the door to The Oasis opens and I catch a glimpse of Kitten, curled on her pil ow. It’s obvious she’s upset tonight, and the evening’s entertainment seemed to only make matters worse for her. Distractedly I ask,

“Which one?”

“Mistress Morgana.”

My chin jerks and I meet Farris’s gaze. “Excuse me? Did you say Mistress Morgana?”

The muscle in his jaw tightens. “Yes, Sir. I believe she is in a relationship with another employee.”

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“Who?”

“Joshua Lambert, one of the bartenders.”

He knows only that she is one of my most trusted Dominants. Being new to Lewd Larry’s, he doesn’t know the history we share.

When I bought the warehouse that eventual became home to Lewd Larry’s, I expected to have to gently evict a few homeless people and help them find somewhere else to live. After al , the place had been abandoned for years and it wasn’t secure, broken windows and doors off their hinges. In a word, it was a mess.

I didn’t expect to find a thirteen-year-old girl, curled up and asleep on the fourth floor. I real y didn’t expect to fal in love with her at first sight.

I woke her up as gently as I could, but she jerked away and held out a knife.

Her bright red hair fel in tangles al the way to her waist, but it was her eyes, blazing a bright emerald green, that held my attention. She seemed fearless, and when she commanded me to “stay away” I believed she had every intention of using the knife if she had to.

She was so smal .

In every way smal . She stood barely four and a half feet and weighed less than eighty pounds. I know, because I took her to the emergency room…right after she ran and tumbled down an entire flight of stairs. She’d broken her arm in three places but didn’t shed a tear.

What a surreal night.

She’d begged and pleaded al the way to the hospital for me to not take her.

Of course, I guessed she was a runaway.

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She’d offered me her body to keep me from taking her for treatment.

“I don’t sleep with children.”

“I’m not a child, not anymore.”

I knew by the tone of her voice she was trying to tel me she wasn’t a virgin, and a rage went through me that anyone would take advantage of such an adorable child. I assumed it had been another vagrant since she was obviously alone on the streets, but as she revealed her story she explained it had been her step-father and she no longer lived at home because her mother hadn’t believed her.

Her account felt truthful, but I made a few phone cal s anyway and after two seconds on the phone with her mother discovered she not only wasn’t welcomed back, but the woman didn’t even want to hear whether she was dead or alive, sick or wel . What kind of person throws away a child?

The night had turned into one of let’s make a deal.

“I’l tel the hospital I’m your father if you let them treat you.”

“I’l find you a safe place to live, someplace where you’l never have to worry about your safety or hunger ever again if you’l go to school and make good grades.”

The first part was easy. The hospital didn’t require anything in the form of identification once they found out I was paying cash. Getting her registered for school was slightly harder. Finding someone I trusted to give her someplace to live was next to impossible, and so a room was made on the fourth floor just for her. The Attic was just a dream then and room for one smal girl was easy.

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Granted, a fetish fantasy nightclub wasn’t the best atmosphere for a young girl, but it was better than the streets and I’d never planned on her staying forever.

I got her through adolescence, through high school and col ege.

I’l never forget the day she came back and demanded a job. She didn’t ask, that wasn’t her style.

I’ve spoiled her too much, I think. She’s always gotten her way.

Fucking Thomas’s brother is the final straw, a direct chal enge to my authority. I assume she doesn’t know the true identity of the bartender known as Joshua Lambert. She does know the house rules. Fraternizing between employees is strictly forbidden.

I can’t overlook this.

I find her alone in her room.

“Is it true?” Our gazes col ide. Her jaw muscle tightens, and I’m sure she is seeing the same sight on my face. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

She glances away, shaking her head, and stands. She doesn’t think I see, but she half-smiles before turning back to face me, which only makes me wonder if he is out there waiting for her.

“You know you have to be punished.”

She props her ass against the windowsil . “Are you going to fire me?”

“I should.” I can’t fire him. “You’re demoted.”

Her forehead tightens, making two deep lines between her brows. “You’re demoting me?”

“You can’t obey my rules—you’re lucky you stil have a job.”

“Fine.”

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“I expect you to break off al relations with the bartender immediately.”

She gives me a look, cold, calculating, if looks could kil …

“No.”

“What did you just say to me?”

“I’m not going to stop seeing him. Fire me if you have to. Throw me out. I should have moved out years ago anyway. This was always supposed to be temporary.”

I can tel by her face, she’s bluffing. “Maybe you should go.”

Her expression is a mixture of fear and disbelief that breaks my heart. She wants me to beg her to stay, I want to beg her to give up the damn bartender.

Watching her, I suddenly remember so many standoffs as she was growing up…lines in the sand…she wanted a puppy, settled for a goldfish, she wanted to wear eyeliner, settled for lip gloss, she wanted—

“You’re a hypocrite!”

“Excuse me?” I’m stil trying to figure out what I can substitute for a man, another man would be fine, any other man besides Thomas’s brother.

“You want to talk about the rules? Al was fine and dandy when you wanted to start fucking Thomas but let any of your underlings get an itch and they get fired?

“I didn’t say you were fired! We were discussing you moving out of The Attic so that you aren’t breaking the rules under my God damn nose!”

Morgana bats her eyes at me and smiles. Oh, fucking no. I did not just give her permission to keep seeing Joshua, but as her smile grows wider I know that’s exactly what she thinks. She throws her arms around my neck and kisses my cheek. “Thank you for looking the other way.”

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