12. Claude

TWELVE

Claude

“ W hat’s going on?”

Something was going on with her. I’d been trying to figure it out for the past ten minutes, but no luck. No, I wasn’t proud of it. Asking and drawing attention to it, was the last thing I’d wanted, but… Desperate measures, and all that.

After introductions were out of the way, and Clay proved how desperate he was for any and all kinds of attention—and, let’s face it, how loud he was begging for a punishment I had no interest in giving him—we’d moved to a different couch.

It didn’t take a genius to know Arlene didn’t do great in crowds. I thought she’d relax when it was just the two of us, but so far, she was as strung tight as she’d been before.

“Sorry.” Arlene licked her lips. “I just got more overwhelmed than I thought I would.”

I absorbed the words. What did she want me to do? We’d just sat down with our drinks. Our legs brushed against each other, which I was very aware of. Should I be touching her more? Maybe I should’ve discussed if she wanted me to be in more of a Domm role. I could ask her to go on her knees or something. Well, I could have. I wasn’t doing it now; it was too late, and I wasn’t negotiating anything when she was this tense.

“Did you want to leave?” I tried.

We’d barely been here, and I’d hate it if she left with a bad taste in her mouth, but she shouldn’t push herself too much if it wasn’t working.

“What?” She frowned, her finger frozen where she’d been tracing the rim of the glass. “No. N-no. It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

I kept an eye on her as well as the rest of the room. So far, no one was playing outside of mild role-play with some subs on their knees. I didn’t want to risk a heavier scene starting, though. There was no way she’d deal well with that.

Arlene took another sip of her drink. I’d gotten her a mocktail different from mine so that we could switch in case she didn’t like it. I was questioning that choice right about now. She’d mentioned she liked it, and she looked like she enjoyed the watermelon syrup, but…

I hesitated. I wasn’t one to doubt myself or second-guess like this. It was strange. Untethering, quite frankly. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “I swear it’s not… It’s really cool to be here, and watch people just being themselves, I guess. I just…”

“You just…?” I prompted when she didn’t finish the sentence.

“I…” Arlene looked up, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. “I didn’t think today would be the day I realized I don’t know what being myself means yet.”

“Huh?” That was a leap I wasn’t expecting to hear. I sat up straighter. I pulled her closer, too, grabbing her drink from her hand and placing it alongside mine on the chrome table. I needed her full attention. “What makes you think that?”

From the moment I first saw her, I’d clocked that she wasn’t quite comfortable in her own skin. As I got to talk with her, though, I got the impression that it was more about the people around her than who she was or wasn’t.

“It’s stupid,” she protested.

“It doesn’t sound stupid.”

Sure, I could be projecting here, but I knew a thing or two about identity struggles. I knew about the ants crawling up my skin on a daily basis whenever I wasn’t true to myself, my style, my gender, and everything else.

If I could help someone not go through that, I would. My relationship to them didn’t matter. They could be the most annoying person in the entire world, and I’d still run to help.

“Doesn’t it?” She grimaced. Her fingers twiddled with the gauze in her dress. She really looked cute tonight. “It’s just… I’m here as a sub, I guess, but I don’t know that I know what that means, or… What it means for me, I mean. I know I don’t want pain, or rubber suits, or big paraphernalia, but… that’s all I’ve got.”

I nodded. “And it’s important for you to have… more.”

I didn’t want to influence her, or to put words in her mouth that weren’t there.

“Yeah.” She darted her gaze down. “It’s silly, I know, but…”

“I’m still processing, too, if it helps.” I knew it didn’t, but I didn’t know how else to begin what I wanted to say. “I don’t know what I want to turn this into. I mean, I know I like playing with you, but I don’t know what kind of Domm I am, either. You’re gonna have to suffer through me figuring it out.”

Something about what I’d said made her laugh. It hadn’t been the goal, but I supposed I’d take it. That was what people did, wasn’t it?

“You’re just so… cool with everything.”

“I can assure you, I am 100% not cool with everything.”

I wasn’t cool with most things, in fact. I got what she meant, though. Whereas Arlene was an open book, with her anxiety the first thing people noticed about her, I wasn’t. I kept my cards close to my chest, and I put on a smile, or a resting bitch face—depending on the occasion—without thinking twice about it.

It was the best way I’d found to protect myself over the years. I didn’t want Arlene to think I was goals, though. I really wasn’t, and she… I didn’t want her to think she had to dim her light, or whatever it was that had first drawn me to her. It just didn’t feel right.

Not everyone had to be a mess behind closed doors like I was.

“I just mean…” Arlene ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. I don’t cope well with uncertainty.”

“I can see that.” They weren’t just words, either. “How can we remove some of that uncertainty so you can enjoy your time here?”

Gosh.

I shivered. What was wrong with me, and why did I have to sound like my therapist? I bet she’d love that if I remembered to tell her.

“I…” Arlene opened and closed her mouth a few times before she seemed to find her words. I kept my face still, not giving anything away. I might be impatient most of the time, but I could wait people out when it was about conversations that mattered. “Can we go upstairs? Just you and me?”

There was no thinking involved when I nodded. No time lapse, either, or going through all possible responses and scenarios in my head. “Let me talk to the owner.”

“Oh?”

My heart started picking up speed then—as those things I hadn’t taken the time to consider built up. “I know there are signs or something you can put outside the doors that mean people can’t walk in to watch, but I don’t know where they are, or how that works exactly.”

“Oh.” Arlene swallowed a big mouthful of air. “Yeah, that’s smart.”

It was the best I could do, even if I knew it wouldn’t suddenly soothe all her anxieties. If there was something that would, I would’ve done it already. Alas, it was out of my reach.

“Wanna wait here or come with me?” The second I phrased the question, and I processed the panic in her face, I knew I’d fucked up. “Don’t answer that. Just wait a sec.”

It wasn’t as if the club was huge, or there were many people trying to get the owner’s attention. I always forgot his name, but I knew he was always behind the bar, he made great mocktails, and he always responded when people asked for help and took them seriously. It was more than enough for me to have a high opinion of the man.

He killed it in those heels, too.

“ A nd no one’s going to come in, right?”

I snorted. “Not unless they want to be banned for life.”

“Okay.” Arlene nodded.

I gave her a second, but when she didn’t say anything else, I took charge and started inspecting the shelves and wardrobes. There was an entire shelf full of condoms, dams, and disposable gloves. Another one was full of the kind of first aid kits masochists would need for aftercare. I was not going to need any of it, but it was good to know they had it. Who knew who could get in trouble, or which one of my messier friends ended up here and I had to guide them to it.

Yeah, I needed to surround myself with less messy people.

It wasn’t as if I collected them on purpose. They all came to me, and I was bad at turning people away. Really bad at it.

“Anything specific you had in mind?”

There were two main reasons I asked—or that’s what I told myself. First, I’d caught her staring at the stairs the second we walked in. She’d tried to cover her interest in the upstairs rooms, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I’d just figured it was better if I didn’t overwhelm her right from the start.

Second, when I’d told her I didn’t know what kind of Domm I was—or wanted to be, for that matter? Yeah, I couldn’t have been more real than that. The idea of not knowing might not be sending me in the same downward spiral it was sending Arlene, but it didn’t detract from the fact that I really didn’t know what I was doing.

I knew I wasn’t particularly interested in any of the standard toys. I was curious about others—like wax, but even though one of the drawers revealed a selection of paraffin waxes, I was not an irresponsible person. Which meant I should find a Domm out there who actually knew about wax play before I could even talk with Arlene about it.

I supposed I could talk with her before that, but that would only add more pressure. It wasn’t as if I worried she would say no to trying it. She’d talked plenty about sensation play. Even if it had been a hard no from her, though, I was a naturally curious person. It was how I’d ended up hanging out with kinky people in the first place even before I knew I wasn’t quite the sex-repulsed asexual person I’d thought I was.

Those thoughts had no place here, though. I’d just brought Arlene out of an identity crisis. Rehashing mine would not help matters.

“Not really,” Arlene murmured, “I just wanted…”

“You can just tell me, you know,” I teased, “I swear I’m not gonna break.”

One day, I’d figure out how to cram it into her head that I wasn’t going to run in the opposite direction because she wanted sex. I knew that was what she was gathering the courage to say.

The thing was, I understood why she hesitated, and I even knew how to fix it. It was the execution that was stumping me—actually talking about everything I said and did in the video that had ended my career.

Yeah, no big deal.

“I know.” Her voice pulled me back. Yeah, I usually had better control of my face muscles, but I couldn’t help but frown. “Really.”

There was laughter in her voice, a hint of mischief that drew me in.

Forgetting the open drawer I’d been inspecting, I stalked toward her. “Wanna say that again?”

Arlene giggled. It was stupidly sweet, and I hated the way it made me want to bottle it all for myself. That was weird, and not a thing that happened. Ugh.

“I do admit sometimes I worry I’ll drive you away because I’m too horny all the time, or something, but that wasn’t why I wasn’t talking just now.”

I guessed that was as honest as I was going to get. Well, it was honest, period. There was a lot to unpack there—the whole thing about driving me away didn’t sit well with me—but I could be patient. Kind of.

“Fair enough,” I hummed. “You still haven’t answered my question though.”

Arlene huffed. “You’re so impatient.”

I was aware of it. At least she picked something that was actually true—unlike Clay, who just called everyone dramatic for sport.

“Your point?” I teased either way.

It really was fun to get her all bothered, whether it was a sexual thing or not. Actually, I might enjoy it more when it wasn’t in the middle of sex and orgasms. I thought faster, and that meant I registered things more sharply, too.

Like the way heat spread across her cheeks, and how she tried to pout, but it didn’t really work out.

“Whatever,” she mumbled before meeting my gaze with hers. “But, to answer your question, I just wanted to feel close to you. It’s embarrassing to say, but I think it settles me, and… Yeah.”

Fuck.

Note to self, do not ask things when you’re not sure you’re ready to hear the answer.

“Come here.”

I expected confusion, but her face just glazed over as she obeyed.

Yeah, I could see how power could get to people’s heads.

“Good girl.”