“I fail to see how carrying a woman around on your back while you act like a horse is relaxing.”
“Now I am jealous. Did you take pictures?”
A smile tugged at Tanwen’s lips, and she tried to keep her voice stern. “No, you degenerate.” She rested her forehead against the glass, looking down the side of the building as her stomach spun. “Why did you send me here this week out of all the weeks? And why did you sign me up for their convention? I mean, you know this isn’t my kind of thing.”
“Do you remember the great divorce cruise of the Caribbean?”
Tanwen lifted her head from the glass and had a moment of vertigo as her eyes tried to comprehend the sudden shift in perspective. “How can I forget? Seven days of fun and steamy destinations with my best friend, that turned into five days of throwing up as our ship was rocked by a tropical storm.”
“It was only four days, and we both lost ten pounds on that trip, which for a cruise is pretty awesome. But I digress. On our first night, we both got out-of-our-minds smashed on rum runners, or should I say you got out-of-your-mind smashed on rum runners. I quit after two and babysat you.”
Tanwen’s stomach lurched at the memory. “Gah, even the smell of rum makes me want to puke. What the heck does that have to do with me being in bondage paradise?”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t remember this because you were able to look me in the face without dying of embarrassment the next day, but you told me all about your secret desires.”
Tanwen took a couple of steps back and slumped onto the cream suede couch and was sure the heat from her blush was going to melt the phone. “I what?”
“I’ll spare you the details, but you were quite intense about your desire to be tied up and spanked. To be told what to do by a man who knew what he was doing. I seem to remember some garbled complaint about men always asking, ‘How’s this? Do you like this? More of this? Less of this?’ You said it was about as sexy as a gyno appointment.”
“Oh God.” Tanwen considered hanging up the phone, but if she did, Sherry was apt to hop on a plane and come there to continue their conversation. Yes, she had planned on coming to Sodom, but not during a BDSM convention. The whole point of doing a VR vacation was to live out her fantasies in a safe place where she didn’t have to worry about the consequences of uninhibited sex with random strangers. Having the BDSM convention here—more importantly having Bryan here—made her want skip the VR altogether and join up with him in the real world. “This is worse than when you took me to that male strip club where I noticed the superhot fireman stripper had razor burn on his inner thighs.”
Sherry laughed. “Okay, so that evening didn’t go quite as planned, but the dancer was very relieved when you told him what cream to use in order to get rid of it. I didn’t think you’d get that worked up about it. I mean, you were coming to Sodom anyways for some sexy-time fun. Why not kill two birds with one stone and explore your fantasies in the virtual world and the real world?”
“Because in the virtual world, I don’t have to worry about someone trying to ride me like a horse!”
“Please. No one wants to ride you like a horse. A pony, maybe, but not a horse.”
A giggle escaped before Tanwen could stop it. She tried not to giggle as she said, “That is not funny.” She tucked her feet beneath her and smoothed her skirt. “Besides, I don’t know if I could face someone in real life after we did…stuff together in one of my fantasies. They might think I’m some kind of pervert.”
“Trust me, no one is going to call you a pervert if they share a fantasy with you. People have a lot kinkier fantasies than whatever you’ve dreamed up. For example, Bernard and I love to fantasize and role-play. In fact I was dressed up just last week as his eighteenth-century English schoolmarm and he—”
“If you never finish that sentence, I will give you a thousand dollars. I do not want to picture your husband in knickers every time we have dinner together.”
“He wasn’t wearing any,” Sherry said with an evil laugh while Tanwen made gagging sounds. “Now back to you. I booked this weekend because this is all about you getting back in touch with the hot and sexy Tanwen we know is hiding beneath that ponytail and baggy jeans. I figured since you would never do something like this on your own, I’d do it for you, and you could put all the blame on me and none on yourself.”
Damn, she hated it when Sherry was right. She leaned forward and curled her bare feet into the carpet. “Sherry, what if they don’t like me? I don’t know anything about their lifestyle, and they’re all so experienced.” The memory of Bryan whispering into her ear flashed through her mind, and her body tightened with arousal.
“Honey, they were all new once. Do you think they came out of the womb in a leather diaper? What would you do if Jeremy told you he was too shy to go meet a group of people he shared a common interest with?”
Tanwen frowned and answered in a dry voice, “I highly doubt my nineteen-year-old biophysics major son, who went on his first date last year, would do something like this.”
“You know what I mean. You would tell him to face his fears and take a chance. You also know he gets his shyness from you, so you’d be setting a pretty crappy example of how to overcome your self-doubt.”
“I fail to see how wearing a latex thong while a stranger calls me a dirty girl is a good example for my son.”
“Now you’re just being bitchy. When’s your first fantasy?”
A quick glance at her watch made Tanwen sigh. “In a half an hour.”
“You’re going to have a blast. What fantasy are you going to do?”
“That is none of your business, Miss Nosy Pants,” Tanwen said in a prim voice.
“Oh God, you sounded just like your mother.”
“I did not!”
Sherry said in a high and nasally voice with a heavy fake New England accent, “Ladies always keep their legs crossed. Ladies wait for the man to open the door. Ladies don’t slouch. Ladies don’t raise their voice—”
“Too bad that one didn’t apply to her yelling at my dad.” Tanwen walked over to where the bellman had put her suitcase on a stand next to the dresser. “And I came to the realization a long time ago that ladies don’t have a lot of fun.”
“Exactly, which is why you need to let your hair down and give in to the hedonistic pleasures that await you at dinner tonight.”
Tanwen laughed and tugged at her shirt. “Seriously what would I even wear? I didn’t bring any leather chaps or edible underwear.”
“You can’t actually wear edible underwear. It melts to your body like a fruit roll-up and can give you a nasty yeast infection. Don’t ask me how I know. I’m sure no one is going to be wearing a leather harness to dinner, and so what if they do? It doesn’t mean you have to, and it certainly doesn’t mean everyone will. Put on that sexy pink dress you got in Jamaica and show off that hot body of yours.”
“What are you, my pimp?”
“Yes, and I expect you to get out there and work it like a hooker on dollar night. Go have fun. I’m here if you need me, just don’t call after ten p.m. unless you want to run the risk of interrupting happy time with my husband.”
“Yuck, and I love you.”
“Love you too.” Sherry’s normally teasing voice turned serious. “Tanwen, you deserve someone who recognizes you for the fantastic woman you are, but watch yourself. I know how easily you bond with people—you can’t help that you have that earth-mother vibe—and I’m afraid you could come home with a submissive in your suitcase. You need to know who you are and love yourself before anyone else can love you. And you need to figure that out on your own without falling in love on vacation like some dippy heroine from a soap opera.” Tanwen snorted, but Sherry continued unabashed. “Have lots of kinky VR sex and take advantage of this opportunity to just focus on yourself and your pleasure. You’ve spent half your life putting your family first. Now it’s time for you to take care of yourself and your needs.”