sometimes—if you’re in a patient enough mood—it’s fun to not let them come.”
Lorna gave him a look. “You’re not a man known for your patience, Master Mephisto.” She would know. She was one of the women who occasionally managed to top him, with great effort on her part.
He winked at her. “We’ll have to get together soon, Mistress. Perhaps when this slave I’m looking after has me nice and worn down.”
Lorna’s eyes flashed. “I don’t want you worn down. That makes it so much less fun.”
“When do I get to wear you down?” he asked seductively.
Lorna made a sound between a laugh and a snort. “Whoever you’re looking after, she’s scrambled your brains. Get out of here. Go back to your unfortunate subbie and strap her into that thing. Return when you’re ready to kneel at my feet,
Master
.”
Mephisto left Lorna’s boutique in high spirits. He loved his kinky people. They were his family, the only family that accepted him as he was, with his quirks and perversions. They understood what made him tick, and shared their own vulnerable secrets so he could return that understanding to them. He was in the fantasy-fulfillment business, and he took his work seriously. It wasn’t just sex. It was his life.
He stopped at an Indian eatery owned by more of his kinky friends to get some takeout for him and Molly. As he waited for the food, he thought that he really didn’t know any vanilla people anymore, aside from his conservative family back east. Even before he opened Club Mephisto he’d been a party promoter, and his parties had increasingly inched to the fetish side. Like Molly, perhaps, he was born to this life. He felt genetically programmed to it, and when he was out amidst large groups of vanillas—when it really couldn’t be avoided—it didn’t feel right.
He returned to the club and unlocked the door, finding Molly hard at work polishing the bar top. Standing back there, he could remember her as she was then, slinging beer, mixing cocktails. Twenty-one, twenty-two years old maybe when he hired her. She had to be almost thirty now, but she looked younger than she had in her early twenties. The anger and cynicism had aged her prematurely, but it was all gone now. Seemingly.
But things in the kink world weren’t always what they seemed.
He saw her eying the bag and decided to make her wait and wonder what was inside. Molly surely recognized the shop name, since Clayton was one of Lorna’s biggest customers. Her imagination would probably invent much worse things than what he’d actually bought. Well, maybe not.
He took her into the kitchen, set the bag beside her on the floor, and fed her
naan
and
momos
, and Indian rice, which was tricky. Molly was lovely, taking the food so delicately from his fingertips. The rest of the time she sat and watched him, thinking about...what? What was in the bag? Thinking about him? No, when she thought about him, she looked afraid. She had that distant, dreamy-mournful look...
“What are you thinking about?”
She looked alarmed. Did she think he’d be jealous if she admitted she was daydreaming about Clayton? Maybe he would be.
“Don’t worry,” he said with a shrug, “you don’t need to tell me. I can guess just from the look on your face. He’s a lucky man to have such a devoted slave.”
She blushed. “Master...I am the lucky one, to be able to serve him.”
Her words came close to contradicting him, but Mephisto let it pass. “Clear these dishes away and then come join me in the play space. We’re going to embark on a little training I warrant you’ve never experienced before.”
He took the black bag with him, and went out to prep the padded table and gather some of the equipment he planned to use. Cuffs, straps, dildos, plugs, condoms for fucking her. He shed his shirt for her benefit, but left his jeans on so her own nakedness might feel more acute. Before long, Molly appeared, walking toward him with that lovely