RecipeforSubmission

Recipe for Submission

Sindra van Yssel

When Kyra decides to research the
villain for her latest thriller by going to a BDSM club, she doesn’t expect to
be shown the ropes by sexy Dom Andrew Ryan. He awakens in her yearnings she
didn’t know she had, and leads her to question everything she thinks she knows
about bondage and sex, pain and pleasure. And he cooks too!

Drew never wanted a regular steady
relationship. Catch and release, that’s the best way to be with subs,
especially novice subs like Kyra, who have a tendency to get attached. Teach
them and move on. But Kyra has so much to learn. Teaching her what her body
wants is immensely satisfying, and so is having her in his bed and at his
dinner table. Together they just might cook up the perfect recipe for
submission.

Chapter One

Kyra Mallory punched the power button on the monitor, pushed
back her chair and stalked away from her computer. There was something that
wasn’t coming together, and the book was due at her publisher in just two
months.

What she needed was inspiration, and the only way she knew
to get that was research. For her last book it had been easy. She took a plane
to London and lived out of a hotel for a month, soaking in the atmosphere until
at last she had all the little details that added verisimilitude to a novel.
Expensive, but easy. But her current work took place right in her own backyard,
in Washington DC. Going to London wouldn’t help. She considered the places in
the story.
A warehouse—I’ve been in a few of those. Congress—well, I’ve been
about as close as I’m likely to get. Lawyers’ offices—I used to work as a
paralegal before my books started selling. BDSM club. I’ve never been inside a
BDSM club. And it’s the villain that isn’t really clicking with me. Perfect.
I’ll just hang out with the perverts and find out what makes them tick.

She’d read about a place where whips and chains were all
part of the “fun” in an article in the local alternative newspaper a year ago.
That had been part of what inspired her to make the murderer a sadist who
preyed on young women. But she didn’t really know much about that scene. Heck,
she wasn’t sure it was safe to know very much about it. But the article had
tried, in addition to the titillation factor, to portray the people who went to
the club as fairly sane.

There was no way she’d be able to dig up that article again.
The paper was long since recycled, and the archives on the web were junk. Did
BDSM clubs list themselves in the yellow pages? She doubted it. But she
remembered finding escort ads on the web and being able to talk to a couple of
working girls to research a book a few years past. Maybe a web search would be
just the ticket. She remembered it had some sort of Latin name—she was sure
she’d know it if she saw it.

Carpe Noctem. Bingo.
Seize the night. The pictures
showed the inside of a large warehouse, very clean and neat. A few showed
smiling people in leather outfits, but nothing indecent; most showed strange
pieces of furniture.
I’ve got a lot to learn.
Admission was steep, about
the price of dinner in the sort of restaurant she went to only when she had a
new book to celebrate. That money bought a one-week membership. Since the place
was only open once a week, and it sounded as if they’d sell the memberships to
almost anyone who showed up, it looked as though membership was some kind of
legal fiction.

“Washington’s premier
bondage nightclub.” Premier
compared to what?
Still, it made the place seem as if it made an attempt to
be elegant, and therefore safe.
“Fetish wear preferred.” Preferred means
“optional”, right?
It was Friday night, seven-thirty. If she was going to
go, she’d best start moving. It would be a whole week until she got another
chance, and she wasn’t about to spend a whole week staring blankly at the
screen as she had for the last two days.

She hesitated at the door. Blue jeans and a University of
Maryland T-Shirt would probably make her stick out more than she wanted. Black.
Everyone was in black in the pictures. She hunted through her dresser for a
black V-neck girl-cut tee, which she hadn’t worn for a while. It was a little
tight.
Maybe that’s not a bad thing
, she thought, and then she checked
herself. She was going for research, and to the last place in the world she
would go if she wanted a date. Besides, the tightness of it made her feel more
extra pudgy than sexy. She sighed.

“To research,” she said, raising her hand in mock salute.
She marched toward the door and out.

Kyra double-checked the address. There was no sign, just a
number on the door of what looked as if it might be a warehouse. She’d had to
park a couple of blocks away, and the neighborhood wasn’t great. A tall, gangly
man had offered to “watch her car” for five bucks, and she’d figured she’d
better pay. He might see to it that her car got broken into if she didn’t.

She opened the nondescript door and walked in, not sure what
to expect. What she saw was a small room. A young bleached blonde was perched
on a stool behind a bar-like desk with a cash register, her legs demurely
crossed but uncovered by her short, black vinyl skirt, and her breasts barely
contained by a black bustier with contrasting white stitching. Big chrome rings
dangled from cuffs on her wrists.
She must be a masochist.
But while
Kyra would have expected a worn, beaten-down expression, the girl was smiling
perkily. Sure, bondage websites always seemed to show some well-adjusted
people, but she didn’t quite buy it.

Kyra glanced around. It could have been a club anywhere. The
girl had a bunch of cardboard circles with numbers on them in front of her,
some on strings and some not. Behind her, garments were hung up with the numbers
dangling from the hangers. A black curtain separated the room from the rest of
the club. Through it came a pounding, danceable beat, although Kyra didn’t
recognize the tune.

Perfectly normal.
It was a hot summer night and she
was sweating in the T-shirt, so she didn’t have a coat, and therefore didn’t
need to talk to the coat-check girl. Except she had to pay for a membership.
She hesitated. She could turn back now and still have all her money, except for
the fiver, but she knew the money wasn’t really what was holding her back.

“Hey,” said the girl. “Are you new? Haven’t seen you around
here before.”

Kyra blinked. “Um, yes. New.”

“It can be intimidating your first time, especially if
you’re alone.” The young woman flashed her a grin. “But don’t worry, no one
inside bites. Unless you ask them nicely, of course.” She giggled.

Nicely. Yeah, right.
But the conversation had spurred
her on. She didn’t think of herself as brave, but she was too stubborn to let
someone see her turn tail and run. She pulled her wallet out of her back
pocket. When she’d seen the address she’d decided against a purse, and the
five-dollar protection racket had made her happy she had. She’d freshened her
lipstick in the car, and that would have to do for the evening.

The redhead took her money and smiled at her as she rang it
up in the register. “Sub, right? Meeting someone you know?”

Kyra shook her head.
Submissive? Not me.
“No.”

“Here, take this.” The girl handed her a small ticket. “Take
it to Ken—he’s the guy with a big silver star on his leather vest. Tell him
Rose sent you. He’ll know what Doms are looking for people to play with.
There’s a few that just love to break in someone new.”

Kyra felt the color drain from her face.
“Break in”. That
doesn’t sound good.
To be helpless with a man wasn’t her. Sure, she liked
it when her dates took the initiative, but that was different. And there was
always something missing from those occasions. She ignored the way her nipples
tightened at the redhead’s words. It was probably the air-conditioning, and the
big fan standing in one corner that blew across the room and fluttered the
drapes leading in to the club.

“I’m not a sub.” She wasn’t sure why she needed to set Rose
straight, but she did.

“Really?” Rose raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“Is this a place where all the women are expected to be
submissive to men or something?” One of the women pictured on the website had a
whip in her hand, so she’d assumed it went both ways.

“No, no. We have a number of femdom couples. And you’ll not
have any problem finding a sub to play with, there’s always more guys looking
for a Domme than there are Dommes to go around. Sorry, Ma’am. Something about
you made me assume. I’m usually a pretty good guesser. Please forgive me.” The
girl bowed her head.

Kyra was taken aback. The girl had gone from perky to
doormat in less than a minute. No, that wasn’t it. The request for forgiveness
was uttered as if it were a formula, the bow much the same. Rose’s head popped
back up and the smile was still there. Softer, perhaps, but still there. And at
Kyra’s silence, she spoke again. “I assume Miss has nothing to check, so have
fun in there.”

“Fun. Yeah.” Kyra realized it sounded stupid. Who would have
a coat to check on a night like this, anyway? She looked past Rose at the
garments hanging up. A few coats, but there were also dresses, shirt, slacks
and jeans. There was even a bra. No, she definitely wasn’t going to check her
T-shirt, or anything else. “Nope, nothing to check.”

So people are naked in there, or close. I should have
expected that.
Bodies were bodies, and nothing to be ashamed of as far she
was concerned. But it did make her pause. Rose’s question about her being a sub
had thrown her off stride. She was there to get information, and how people
perceived her shouldn’t matter. “Rose, you’re a sub, right?”

“Um, yeah. Yes, Miss.”

Kyra thought she’d detected an unspoken “duh!” in there. She
supposed it
was
a stupid question. “I’m just Kyra, you don’t have to
call me ‘Miss’. It’s very nice to meet you, Rose. What do you get out of being
a maso— A sub? I’m curious.”

Rose gave her a searching look. “I find it’s the one time my
attention is completely
there
, you know? Everything else gets pushed
away, all the worries and tests and everything, and I’m completely transfixed by
my Dom. At least, when it all goes well. Vanilla just doesn’t hold my
attention. Are you a reporter?”

Kyra blinked. Not quite right, but Rose wasn’t too far off
the mark. The young woman
was
perceptive. “No, I’m not a reporter. I’m
just—a curious person. And very new to all of this. What do you mean by
‘vanilla’?”

“Wow! You
are
new. Vanilla is like, the opposite of
kinky. Plain. Ordinary.”

Plain. Ordinary. That definitely described her love life.
“Ah, thank you.” Rose’s answer hadn’t been what she’d expected. She was ready
to hear about the pleasures of pain, the supposed superiority of men, or—well,
she wasn’t sure exactly what she was expecting. But wanting to be completely
focused? That was different, and yet she could understand it. She’d found
herself thinking about other things the last time she had made love, and that
was three months ago now. It wasn’t as if she had a string of people lining up
to be in her bed, and yet the actual act almost bored her. It was some fun.
Just not the transporting bliss everyone else made sex out to be.

Rose was smiling at her. “Everybody here is different, and
no two people approach BDSM quite the same way. You’ll see all types inside,
Kyra. Just remember different is okay and be respectful, and you’ll have no
problems.”

Kyra nodded. “Thank you, Rose. Should I, like, have a code
name?”

“A scene name? That’s up to you. Some of us use our real
names, but some people have secrets to hide. A lot of us use online to
communicate, and we don’t necessarily want our real name to be out on the
internet. Pretty soon, everyone’s calling us by our screen name. Others find
that the adoption of a scene name helps them get into their scenes better, like
role-playing. It’s an expression of their identity when they’re here, which
isn’t necessarily the way they are at work, or at home.”

Kyra nodded. She was coming up blank. At least Kyra wasn’t
the name she wrote under, but it wasn’t that common a name, either. But she
couldn’t think of anything clever to call herself at the moment.
It doesn’t
matter. I’m not going to do anything, anyway. Just going to ask people some questions.
What I really need to do is talk to a Dom, someone like my villain.

“Thank you,” she said to Rose.

“Sure! Just obey the rules. If you don’t, Ken will kick you
out, no refunds.”

She hurried through the curtain. The little ticket Rose had
given her would be the thing to get her introduced, but if the “Dom” was
expecting a playmate, he’d be in for a rude surprise. Kyra Mallory didn’t
submit to any man.

She walked in and opened her mouth wide. It wasn’t that she
expected anything different, really. She just didn’t think such a place could
be real.

A broad-chested man with leather pants was flogging a naked
blonde on an X-shaped piece of furniture that held her wrists and ankles apart
and left her helpless. A hairy man with nothing on but a pouch was crawling on
all fours behind a willowy leather-clad Dominatrix, who had him on a leash. A
woman wearing only a G-string and pasties was dancing on a perfectly ordinary
table, to the amusement of several people, men and women, gathered around.
Another woman was getting a spanking on a couch in the corner, and Kyra could
hear each blow despite the other noises and the pounding music. A man dressed
in a tux was standing next to a topless brunette lounging with her butt on one
chair, her feet up in another. He was feeding her strawberries, one at a time.

Who’s on top in that scene? She’s the one that’s half
naked, but he’s the one serving the strawberries.

She realized she’d been standing there with her mouth open
but not really breathing when she suddenly felt lightheaded. She took several
deep breaths.
I’m an adult. I can handle this.
Feeling more stable, she
looked around for a man with a leather vest and a silver star. She found him
off to the side, talking to a man and a woman intently. She took a step toward
him and stopped. Ticket or no, it would be rude to interrupt, and she suspected
that the ordinary rules of etiquette applied double here.

Rose’s apology still bothered her. She didn’t know the rules
of behavior here, and she needed someone to teach her. It was, after all, part
of what she came here to find out. But what were the consequences of getting it
wrong?
I don’t want to find out.