Sweet and Dirty (8 page)

“Yes. That.” Ro’s smile faded slightly though. “I’ll always be up for playing games with you. Exclusive dating. Anything you want, really. But…you should know, your inclinations are pretty obvious. I’ve never seen anyone respond to a chastisement quite like you.” He stroked her hand, a respectful caress. He picked it up. Kissed it. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

“I know. You do the same thing to me.” Lizbeth leaned into his caress. Then frowned. “I liked it a little too much.”

“No such thing.”

“There is, though,” she said, her history of submission playing out in her mind. She’d come so far, only to find herself flat on her back. Literally. A tight ball of sadness quickly grew and prickled in her throat as she thought of her failed attempt to become stronger than she’d been.

Ro looked as if he wanted to say something.

She spoke first. “I could still learn.” She could give others such sensations too. She climbed to her feet, looked around, selected a multiple-strand whip, swished it back and forth experimentally.

But instead of empowered, she felt a little silly. Maybe she should display a little more aggression, strut around, get into the role.

She strode to him, hoping the curl of her lips looked as vicious as his did. She whacked the whip into her palm. Winced. Gamely, she stared up at him, wishing she still wore her heels. “You seem uncomfortable with a woman holding authority,” she drawled, waving the whip threateningly.

“Actually, Vivian is my best dominatrix and I respect her tremendously.”

Her heart plunged. That didn’t fit the script. What was she supposed to do with that? Jealousy tugged at her. Did he want Vivian? Suddenly she truly did feel like hitting him with the whip. Why wasn’t he helping? Why wasn’t he letting her become something more than a doormat?

“Lizbeth.” Ro plucked the whip from her, an adult taking a dangerous weapon from a child. His voice was laughter and truth. “You don’t want this. You can’t hide your innermost desires from me. Stop pretending to be something you’re not.”

No fantasy. Cold reality. She would never be strong. She could never be the dominant one in any relationship, human or canine. Never hold authority. He’d diminished her, but instead of the first step it was supposed to be, it was the last.

Was that pity in his eyes?

She had to get out of there and never come back.

Even as she thought it she acted on it, fleeing the Cage Room and dashing across the nightclub, nimbly avoiding the press of bodies. She exploded out the entrance. She heard Ro calling. She ran faster, her shoeless feet slapping against sidewalk, speeding her to her car and flooring the gas pedal to escape the inescapable truth.

She fought back tears. She headed home until she remembered Ted would be there. One look at her and he’d ask questions she couldn’t possibly answer, especially after his failed proposal. That complication she didn’t need.

Changing direction, she headed toward the dog day care instead. To be surrounded by dogs would be a comfort.

R
o pushed through the crowd with more aggression than seemly. He cursed when people took too long getting out of his way.

By the time he shoved, apologized, and dodged his way out the front door, all he saw of Lizbeth were the taillights of her car.

“Spare some change?”

Ro glanced down. Sitting against the wall—the same wall his patrons lined up against to wait to get inside the club—was a group of poorly dressed, foul-smelling transients. Newspapers surrounded them, and stinking trash. He even saw a discarded syringe. One degraded individual slumped sideways, swigged from a bottle of Glenlivet whisky. “You look like you could spare a dollar, mister.” He went to swig again, but something in Ro’s eyes froze his arm halfway up. “What?” the man finally asked. “See somethin’ green?” His arm continued its upward movement.

Liquor sprayed from his mouth when Ro lifted him off his feet and slammed him against the wall. “I do see something green. How much did he pay you?”

“I dunno what you’re talking about.” Smug and surly.

Slam
. “Bums don’t drink Glenlivet.”

“I dunno what you’re talking about.”

Slam
. “Who paid you? Who paid your friends? Give me a name.” But it wasn’t doing any good. Of course it was his father. Paying these people to camp outside his club. Paying the porn stars to film inside his club. Maybe paying the cops to harass him. Probably. His own father, the elder Kaliph attorney who always won. One way or another.

Ro had emerged from the club angry. Now he was enraged.

He spoke in his coldest “master” voice. “You will tell me his name and how much he paid you, or I will bring you inside The Dungeon. Do you know what happens to bad people in there?” He allowed himself a tight smile as he watched the fear flicker across the stinking man’s face. It was almost too easy to play on this one’s false assumptions about BDSM clubs. “Let me tell you what will happen if you don’t start talking in ten seconds or less. I’ll give you to Vivian. She’s a talented cock-and-balls torturer. She’ll hang devices from your junk that will make you shriek for mercy. She might do piercings if she’s in the mood. She’ll doubtless put you in a pony suit, with a mouth bit and large, expandable butt plug with an attached horsetail. You will prance and do tricks for everyone while she whips you with a riding crop until you scream. It’s her favorite thing. Unless you’d rather talk now?”

He would rather talk now.

Twenty minutes later, on the porch of the large Bel Air house, Ro confronted him.

“Hi, Dad. Just back from some nighttime grocery shopping? Buy any Glenlivet?” Ro plucked the plastic grocery bag from his father’s hand. He pulled out two bottles. “Thanks, you shouldn’t have. Now, don’t act surprised, I’m not some gullible jury likely to fall for your courtroom theatrics.”

Ro steered him away from the house, onto the wide tree-canopied sidewalk. With his arm around his father’s tense shoulder, Ro spoke quietly to the smaller man. “I understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, but you have to stop.”

Ro had to give him credit: at least he didn’t dissemble. “You understand nothing. Throwing your life away on a sleazy nightclub. Hurting your reputation this way. What will it take for you to return to your true calling? You’re so good at the law, son. I need you.”

“Wow, that was almost the whole persuasion gamut,” Ro observed. “Everything but the threats. And those you delivered by proxy.” They passed the neighbor’s gold Jaguar, the next neighbor’s shiny BMW. He stopped next to an Aston Martin. The streetlight above made its silver paint gleam. “Let me put this bluntly, because I’m in a hurry and I want you to understand me clearly. I don’t want your lifestyle. I want mine. You won’t take it from me. You see, I now have credible evidence that you’re harassing me, bribing transients to damage my property, distributing liquor on public walkways, and interfering with my business. Additionally, I have strong circumstantial evidence linking you to certain harassing activity involving the police. I could have you in court for a baker’s dozen of charges, up to and including racketeering. Dad, I hate to use this kind of language,” Ro continued, turning them back toward the house, “but if I’m forced to litigate, it’ll really wreck your reputation, your relationship with peace officers, and your bank account.” He finished just as they returned to the porch. He patted his father on the shoulder once, then folded his arms and waited.

“That’s what I mean,” his dad complained. “Killer instinct, wasted.”

Ro thought of Lizbeth. Of his club, his employees, his grateful patrons. “It’s not wasted.”

He examined Ro. “I’m not going to convince you, am I? Or coerce. You really don’t want to return to Kaliph & Son?” His voice turned wheedling. “What if you could do both? Run your little club just on weekends?”

“You never give up, do you?” Ro said with reluctant admiration. “Always trying to convince me, even though it’s never going to succeed….” Ro trailed off, remembering his own tactics in trying to convince Lizbeth that she didn’t want to be dominant. Showing Lizbeth her true nature had frightened her. Frightened her away. But there was nothing more he could do.

She would simply have to open her eyes and see it for herself. He’d helped her all he could.

He hoped she’d figure it out soon. They’d been parted for only a short time, and he already missed her. He knew what it meant that he longed for her so strongly, so soon, but there was nothing to be done for that, either.

His dad, though. Ro looked down at the aging man with fondness. He was a stubborn individual, a sore loser, and a strong-willed creature of habit, even more so than Lizbeth. He was the one who needed Ro’s help now, Ro realized with a pang. Abandoned by his only son, running the family business alone, it was small wonder he’d resorted to such ridiculous criminal measures to get Ro’s attention. “Let’s go to Barney’s Beanery like old times,” Ro suggested, and was rewarded by the fierce grin so much like his own.

“I’m not changing my mind, though,” Ro warned as he climbed into the passenger seat. “If you’d only come inside The Dungeon sometime you’d see why.”

“Let all the perverts at me?” Ro’s father paused, considered. “Are they well heeled?”

“Oh yes,” Ro said with a laugh. “The women especially. Five or six inches.”

T
he dogs were mostly curled up in packs, sleeping, but there was one black Labrador in the large dog enclosure that barked, and a shih tzu in the small dog enclosure that wouldn’t stop whining. Ted wondered how the other dogs could sleep so soundly on hard vinyl floors, with that constant, repetitive, annoying noise.

His hangover aches and pains had returned with a vengeance.

His worst fear, confirmed. He was gay.

He drank, trying to soothe all that felt wrong with him. The sixth beer from a six-pack of Miller Genuine Draft drained into him. Michelle would laugh at him. His dad would disown him. His drinking buddies would shun him. After they kicked his ass.

Posh had taken him to West Hollywood, and Ted had felt himself responding to the energy of the place. Even more than the rest of LA, WeHo had felt like a happy home, with the kinds of carefree people who simply didn’t exist in Alabama. And the men…Ted shivered, his mind racing from the memory of handsome man after handsome man walking, sitting, dancing. Dancing to Erasure. He’d danced, too…. Others—broad-shouldered and self-assured—looked at him as they gyrated with subtle cleverness and with that devious, knowing smile that made his cock harden in his pants.

He was gay. He couldn’t be gay. There had to be some kind of antidote. Posh had brainwashed him. Telling him he was gay had made him believe it.

The Labrador kept barking. The shih tzu still whined. Ted envied them their simplicity.

“Don’t suppress it, you’ll only give yourself a complex,” Posh had advised as he sipped his hangover remedy and surreptitiously (he’d thought) checked out the occupants of The Black Cap. She’d been amused at his predicament.

And later, while they’d sipped mineral water, she’d explained more than he’d wanted to know about the gay scene. He’d learned about the gay hanky color codes. The secret gay fun palaces. She was a “fag hag,” she said, and that’s why he liked her so much.

He didn’t like her anymore.

Ted didn’t want to go home to Michelle until his head was on straight again. He’d ordered beer. He’d also picked up a six-pack of MGD. No more fruity blush wine for him.

Once he screwed a woman again, the crazy wicked thoughts would fall from him like a bad dream. When he took Michelle back to Alabama he would forget all of this.

All he needed was to have sex with Michelle. It’s not like it’d be the first time for them. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Besides. It wasn’t as if he was the only one who needed moral rescuing. From what he’d seen, he’d be doing her a favor. Get her head on straight, too. Her family would be grateful to him. They’d live happily ever after with three kids and a bunch of dogs.

Ted finished his beer and tossed the empty at a trash can. It banged against the wall and landed on the floor. The noise woke the dogs, and the sudden roar of all of them barking at once almost seemed like encouragement to him, a primal masculine noise that urged him to his feet and toward the office to grab his keys. Instinct. Kill or be killed. Fuck or be fucked. When Michelle opened her apartment door he would pounce like the healthy heterosexual beast he was.

So it took him by surprise when Michelle suddenly opened the dog day-care door and walked in.

L
izbeth heard the dogs barking. She threw the door open and rushed inside. “Charlie, you naughty thing, are you biting that Australian shepherd again? When I catch you…”

“When you catch him you’ll pet him and cuddle him and make friends, no matter how bad he’s been. Hi, Michelle.”

“Ted!” She halted. “What are you doing here? Where’s Posh? The door was unlocked.”

He didn’t answer. His calculated stroll toward her made her hackles rise. Something was wrong with Ted. Was he stalking her? She laughed at her paranoid thoughts. The Dungeon and its protocols had rubbed off on her. There was a good reason for Ted to be here, acting this way, and she’d find out what it was as soon as she calmed the dogs down.

“Hey, big guy,” she crooned. Charlie butted his head against her hand, wriggling his body as he wagged and grinned up at her with his Labrador smile. She couldn’t be stern. She knew that’s what got results; just look how they reacted when Posh cracked the whip. But she couldn’t.

As she’d expected, the dogs quieted down quickly under her soothing voice and quick investigative touches. Charlie let out a happy whine and raced to the edge of the enclosure to lick her hand, then leapt away, wanting to play. “Sorry, buddy. Not now.” She scratched him under the chin for a moment, then turned to Ted.

“They don’t seem hurt. Did you see who started the fight?”

“
I
did.” Ted stalked closer. “I threw a can. Not at them,” he assured her, staring at her dress but focusing on her legs. “You look nice.”

Lizbeth stared at him. “How are you feeling?” She walked to the trash and peered inside at all the crumpled aluminum beer cans.

“I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Good.” Ted eased into her space. She could smell the beer and sense his intensity. “We have to have a little chat, you and me.”

He was going to propose again. He wanted her to come back to Alabama and wasn’t taking no for an answer. Again.

For the first time, she was actually tempted. She’d never be assertive, never carve a meaningful niche where she could become someone else: a strong, effective voice of authority with dogs or people. Why not marry Ted, and move back to where the disappointments were at least small and predictable?

But something held her back.

“Ted…this is a really bad time.”

“Fine. We won’t chat. How about I just remind you of how it can be between a man and a woman? I love you, Michelle. You know that, don’t you?”

He kissed her. It was as wet and unconvincing as it had been the night before. She tried to push him away. “What’s wrong with you?”

“There is nothing wrong with me,” Ted stated. “Nothing at all. And that’s the way I’m going to keep it.” His hand found the back of her thigh, traveled upward. “Hey, you’re all ready to go, aren’t you?”

The manhandling had felt heavenly with Ro. But Ted’s hands left her cold. “Stop it,” she cried, desperate.

And was answered. An outraged roar filled her ears, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a black shape vault the large dog’s wall.

Charlie tackled Ted, carrying them both to the floor. Ted screamed.

“Hold still!” Lizbeth yelled. “Ted! If you play dead, and don’t move, Charlie’ll back off. Hold still,” she repeated, using her most soothing voice, the one that always calmed the dogs. Ted stopped flailing his arms. Only his eyes rolled to show their whites as he stared at the bared fangs inches above his face.

“I should tell him to bite your dick off,” she said in the same soothing voice, amazed at both the sentiment and the sight of her favorite dog straddling Ted, ready to protect her.

“No, you shouldn’t,” said a familiar voice. “The liability insurance for this place would go through the roof.” A whip cracked, and Charlie leapt off Ted. The dog went immediately to Lizbeth to nose her hand, sniffing, licking worriedly.

Lizbeth stared at the tall woman in the black hood. “Vivian? You followed me here?” She felt confused, then hopeful. Maybe Ro had sent this dominatrix to bring her back. Then she focused on the whip. Posh’s whip.

The woman walked straight to her, ignoring Ted. The black shadows where her eyes could barely be seen seemed to suck up the light in the large facility. She still carried the whip, and her aggressive stride spoke of anger. The dominatrix ripped off her hood.

“Holy crap. Posh?”

“The one and only.” Her boss fluffed her hair.

“You’re Vivian?” Suddenly all the pieces fell together. “Of course.” Lizbeth blushed to think of all
Vivian
had witnessed.

“Oh yeah. Someone had to keep an eye on you, vanilla. Though no longer, of course.” She glanced at the marks on Lizbeth’s legs with approval. “He’s good, isn’t he, Lizbeth?”

“She doesn’t look like a Lizbeth,” Ted said. Both women ignored him.

She stared at Posh’s muscular body and exquisite hair. It made her aware of her own rumpled state.

Posh laughed, shook her head. Black glossy curls fell around her shoulders and down her back. “Oh yeah, he’s good for you, you’re good for him, Cupid’s been busy. I like my men more compliant. Not quite as compliant as this, though.” Posh nudged Ted with the tip of her boot. He smacked it away, a pissed-off expression replacing the bewildered one.

“Touchy. We’ll have to forgive him. His emergence was traumatic.”

“Emergence?”

“He’s g—”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Ted leapt to his feet. Charlie growled warningly. Ted stared daggers at the dog and stopped moving. He spoke. “I’m no turd burglar. You were just messing with me. Weren’t you?”

Lizbeth saw the desperate way he looked at Posh. “You’re
gay?
”

“Not me, him,” Posh clarified.

“I’M NOT!”

This time Charlie snarled and took a step closer to Ted. “Will you call that mutt off?”

“He’s a purebred, not a mutt. Charlie, be good. That’s it. Let’s go have a cookie.” Lizbeth led Charlie to the treat bag and fed him one.

“Reward him for attacking me. Nice.”

“
You
attacked
me
.”

Posh laughed softly but with abandon. “This is all so priceless. Ted…As I said earlier. It’s easier if you embrace your attraction to men. Stop fighting it.”

Lizbeth strolled with Charlie to the big dog’s enclosure. She let the dogs investigate her, to show them she was unhurt. “C’mon,” she murmured to them. “Give me some air.” They backed away, nosing each other while keeping an eye on her.

She paced, unable to keep still.

“And that goes double for you. Michelle.”

Her head snapped to Posh. “What did you call me?”

“Michelle. Lizbeth. Whatever. Stop fighting your true nature. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Maybe…It’s Lizbeth…”

“You know better. You came alive with Ro. But you ran, and here you are pining for him while you frolic with the dogs as if you were one of them. You don’t master the critters, not the way I do. Be okay with that. You love them, they love you, and so your way is just as effective. Look.”

Lizbeth looked. As she’d walked, the dogs had clogged in a group behind her and followed. As her stare lingered, they all sat, one after the other. Waiting for her to lead.

Lizbeth felt delight. “Hey, I’m an alpha!”

“More of a first among equals. They feel affection for you.”

Posh stepped inside the enclosure, and the dogs immediately abandoned Lizbeth, sidling toward Posh with submissive postures and licking the air. “They feel fear of me.” She waved the whip and they shied away, then lowered themselves to their bellies. Posh smiled. “I’m the alpha here. Even though I don’t care about them, and I seriously doubt they care about me.”

Lizbeth nodded, her heart expanding with the devotion she felt for her furry friends. The dogs loved her. Sasquatch had loved her. And she’d always love them. She’d take affection over fear any day.

But then she frowned. “You really don’t care about them? Why keep a dog day-care business?”

“Ro can’t afford to take me on full time, at least not yet.” Posh twirled a strand of her hair around the handle of the bullwhip. “It just sort of happened.”

Lizbeth was nodding, staring at Posh. Specifically at Posh’s hair. “I remember you telling me about the dogs you groomed, and how that blossomed into a business. But Posh. Why don’t you start a people-grooming business? Be a hair stylist, I mean,” she amended.

“Hey, that’s a good idea!” Ted said.

Both women stared at him. “What, I don’t get an opinion?”

Lizbeth almost felt sorry for Ted. But she could see that part of him enjoyed the attention. And was beginning to accept his unexpected sexual feelings.

Could she do the same?

Lizbeth longed for Ro, his mastery, his touch. But if it meant letting go of her dream of becoming assertive, could she do it? She’d suffered as a submissive person. Not the good kind of suffering, either. She ran a hand over the pinch zone on her arm, remembering all the times she’d turned her fears and anxieties inward, seeking relief by hurting herself. She’d come such a long way from that. It couldn’t all be for nothing.

But she couldn’t give up Ro, either.

She caught herself pinching her arm just below her elbow.

“Collar,” she whispered. And stopped.

Posh swished her whip. It was probably a thoughtless gesture of hers, but Lizbeth kept an eye on the weapon just the same. “What was that?” Posh asked.

“Collar,” she repeated more loudly. “It’s my safe word. When I say it, all BDSM play stops. I have control.” She looked at her arm wonderingly. “I have control.”

“Of course you do. And?” Posh studied her nails.

“It means nobody hurts me, unless I let them. Posh, I’m going to borrow one of our new dog collars, and a leash.”

“Accessories! Good girl,” she approved. “Ted, fetch her a collar.”

“Fetch it yourself,” Ted retorted. When she waved the whip in his direction he stuck his tongue out at her.

Lizbeth got the collar herself. She kissed Charlie on his furry head and promised she’d buy him an even prettier one.

Then she went to take Ted’s hand, squeezed it. “I’ve got to go, Ted.”

“I’ll take care of Ted, don’t worry. Here.” Posh held out a black leather cap with lettering across the front. “I had this old thing lying around. You can have it. Go get him,” Posh instructed her for the second time that night, and winked.

Lizbeth went.