He shrugged. “Sorry. She seems like a very nice woman, but—”
“She doesn’t flip your switch. I get it.”
He smiled. “Never say switch to a Dom, Leah. In either context. I don’t do one, and I’m liable to use the other.”
She laughed. “Yeah, if I ever saw you switch with someone I think I’d make them haul you to the hospital for a CAT scan.” She sighed. “I’d hoped you’d really like her.”
“I do like her. I just don’t lust after her. I’ll be happy to play with her if she wants. I wish more women were like her. I’d be playing all the time if they were all nice, charming, and lacking a full matching six-piece set of emotional baggage. I’m allergic to clingy and drama. You know that.”
“Yeah.” She started clearing the table. “That’s why I thought you two would be perfect for each other.”
Leah had managed to find two types of women to try to fix him up with. Women he was physically attracted to, but he knew he could never have a relationship with. Or women who seemed to be perfect relationship material, but he felt zilch attraction toward them.
When Leah was out of earshot, Seth leaned in and whispered, “Don’t worry. I think she’s getting close to the end of her address book.”
“Yeah, but she’s got a lot of contacts putting feelers out. She won’t stop until she either fixes me up or I find someone on my own.”
“That’s such a bad thing? A woman’s got to have a hobby.”
“Why can’t her hobby be sucking your dick?”
He grinned. “It is, but this is her other hobby.”
Returning home a little after eleven that night, Tony put his keys and wallet in the dish on the bookcase by the front door and didn’t bother turning on the living room lights. He didn’t have to look at the empty house if it was dark inside.
Yes, sure, it’d be nice to have a relationship. It wasn’t something he needed, however.
Missed? Of course. But not the parts with the drama. His last attempt at a relationship had been a disaster, with the woman turning into Queen Clingy the minute he agreed to being exclusive with her and had collared her as his submissive. Hell, the last two play partners he’d had, despite making it clear to them from the beginning that he didn’t want a relationship with them, still tried to pursue one. Even after they assured him they understood and were fine with just being friends and play partners.
They’d both hoped they could convince him to change his mind and make him come around. The only thing they’d succeeded in doing was driving him away.
He had no room for a drama llama corral in his life, much less any interest in keeping it stocked.
The next morning, he spent his first meeting of the day idly imagining Darren naked, hands cuffed behind him, on his knees with a ring gag in his mouth while his fellow department managers used his mouth as a cum dump.
Tony rubbed his face with his hands as the image drifted away when it was his turn to speak. He hated these damn daily meetings. He didn’t see why they couldn’t be done through e-mail so he could spend his time actually working instead of in a corporate circle jerk. “We had a sev-1 incident yesterday when a backup server went down. Got it up and running in thirty minutes. Still troubleshooting what happened, but no customers were impacted.”
Darren nodded without even looking at Tony and called upon the next manager.
Prick.
After lunch, he took a moment to thumb through his personal e-mail on his phone and found a message from Valerie.
It was nice meeting you last night. I might be at the club Saturday night. If you’re going, let me know if you’re interested in setting up a scene.
He stared at the message, his thumbs hesitating over the virtual keyboard. Instead of replying, he closed the message.
It can wait until later.
Upon having a night to think it over, he didn’t know if he wanted to play with her. Plus he thought he might be up for a turn as a volunteer dungeon monitor that weekend. If so, it would give him a perfect excuse not to play with her. He couldn’t play if he was supposed to be watching out for others.
I could always cancel. It was understood that with his job he might have to bow out of a DM stint at the last minute. He was never scheduled to be a primary DM, and they always had others working the club so his absence wouldn’t leave them shorthanded.
He’d deal with it later. He wasn’t poly, he wasn’t interested in recreational sex or in lots of casual play, and he didn’t want to lead the woman on and hurt her feelings, either.
Or end up having to extricate himself from a sticky situation if she got clingy. So far, his relationship with Seth and Leah hadn’t suffered from any of the matchmaking failures, but he didn’t believe in tempting fate.
By the time he got home that night and checked his e-mail on his laptop, he’d forgotten about Valerie’s e-mail. After looking at his schedule and discovering that no, his DM turn was next weekend, he hit reply.
Sounds good. I won’t know what my schedule is like until later in the week though. I’ll have to let you know.
He hit send.
He stared at the screen. You’re a fucking chickenshit. No, it wasn’t a lie, exactly. Emergencies cropped up at work all the time. Meetings were added at the last minute. Critical upgrades to fix a system failure or security issues could have him going in to work in the middle of the night.
He grabbed leftovers from the fridge and nuked himself a plate of food. Eating alone sucked more and more every day. He missed companionship, conversation, the camaraderie having someone in his life provided.
Although he didn’t miss drama.
At all.
He’d had enough of that to last him several lifetimes. After extricating himself from a nasty divorce from a woman whose apparent mission in life was to drive him crazy when she realized he’d really meant what he’d said before they got married about him not wanting kids, he was loathe to enter anything remotely resembling a drama-filled relationship. Queen Clingy had only cemented that resolve.
It didn’t hurt that after the divorce he’d discovered he wasn’t the only person who had dark, delicious fantasies about tying women up and spanking them. Once he’d learned he wasn’t alone, he wasn’t a freak, and that there were women out there who enjoyed being tied up and spanked, he’d refused to settle for vanilla.
Although after ten years of not finding the right long-term partner, he admitted it was difficult not to just give up on the prospect.
He knew it was doable. Ross and Loren were a prime example. And Seth and Leah. Before Seth, she had Kaden. Then there were Tilly and her guys, although many of their friends, himself included, thought at first she was nuts to welcome Cris back into her life after the way he’d dumped her.
Those were just the couples and triads he could think of off the top of his head. He had lots of friends who had found happiness in the lifestyle. He knew it was perfectly possible for lightning to strike, for the heavens to open, and to find one’s perfect, kinky mate.
Living close to the lightning capital of the world, however, he found it ironic that lightning had yet to strike him.
Chapter Three
Shayla began her research for the article series on BDSM the next day despite how tempting she found it to procrastinate.
The sooner I do it, the faster I can move on to something else.
She looked at the printout Kimberly had shared from the local BDSM group’s webpage. They advertised a monthly Munch at a local restaurant, in addition to having parties every month.