Page 34 of A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel 1)
She turns that Domme’s gaze on me, and like any good submissive, I instinctively lower my eyes, then raise them back up when I catch myself. That earns a small laugh out of her at least.
“You need to find someone kinky here, and fast,” she says. “I think you’re hard up for it.”
She has no idea.
“I’m in agony to be in agony,” I admit. And then I narrow my eyes. “You didn’t answer my question.”
She twists her mouth. “It’s not my story to tell.”
I think about this a moment. “Does it make a difference that I really, really want to know?”
“It could, if it were up to me. Which it’s not.”
For a minute, there’s only the rising wind and the rain hurling itself against the house.
“Are you going to fuck Saint?” Rebecca finally asks, still quietly enough so that only I can hear, but frankly enough that I let out a surprised laugh. “Because you look like you want to fuck him.”
“I like you,” I tell her, grinning into my drink. “And I appreciate your candor.”
“I’m allergic to bullshit,” she says. “Now confess.”
“I want to fuck him,” I say, risking a more direct glance over at him. He must have worked today—either that or he felt the need to dress up for dinner. He’s in a mostly unwrinkled button-down and slacks, department store shoes on his feet, and it looks like he’s tried to smooth back his longish hair, but it keeps falling into his face anyway. He’s leaning forward and looking down into his whisky, and there’s a restlessness moving through him that reminds me of the winter storm outside.
“He might not be kinky,” Rebecca cautions.
“I’m not planning a wedding or anything. Just sex.”
“Can you even come from vanilla sex?”
Question of the century. “Well, I, um. I don’t know what makes me come during sex.”
Rebecca turns to me, head first, then the rest of her body. “You don’t know,” she repeats slowly. “What makes you come during sex.”
I scrunch up my face in embarrassment. “I’ve never done it.”
“Is this some heteronormative ‘never specifically had a penis specifically in your vagina’ thing? Or are you saying you really, truly haven’t had sex?”
“No sex,” I respond. My cheeks are on fire. “Nothing.”
“So the person who gave you those welts . . . ?”
“Just gave me the welts,” I confirm. “No orgasms involved. I mean, I got myself off later, alone, but not with her around.”
Rebecca looks stunned. “And how long have you been doing kink?”
“Formally since I was eighteen.”
“And you’re how old now?”
“Twenty-two. Look, I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not anything like that—I’m not scared, it’s not a religion thing, I’ve been in love before. It just hasn’t felt right, that’s all.”
Rebecca thinks about this a moment. “Interesting,” she muses. “And now it does?”
I’m dying for whatever Domme insight she has. “Now it does. Does that make me strange?”
She looks back at Saint rolling his glass between his fingertips as the others laugh and talk around him.
“No,” she says heavily. “It may make you foolish. But it doesn’t make you strange.”
