“Thank you, Mistress.” He playfully bowed to her and turned to leave.

“Thorny?” Nora called out.

“Yes, Mistress?” he said as he turned on his heel to face her.

“Is it hard?”

“Not at the moment, but if you took your clothes off that would help.”

She gave him the look that would send future clients wondering if their health insurance covered dungeon-related injuries.

“Oh, you mean the job?” Thorny said. “It’s a good job if you’re the right person to do it. And I am. My clients are all women. Professional women who are rich, successful, busy. Too busy for a serious relationship. They call me and I give them a night or a week. Whatever they need. I give the best Boyfriend Experience in the state, and it’s all the fun.”

“What about you? You don’t want a serious relationship?”

“I can’t have one,” he said with a shrug.

“Why? Just because you’re an escort?”

“No,” he said. “Because I’m dying.”

Nora’s eyes widened and Thorny laughed.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to drop dead here and now, right this second. Wait. I might actually. I have a brain aneurysm. It could burst today. It could burst ten years from now. It could never burst. But I don’t know when it will, and when you live with the fear you can go any minute, the last thing you want to do is drag someone else into that nightmare. Not a wife. Definitely not kids.”

“I’m... I’m very sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m at peace about it. Getting the shit beat out of me regularly helps keep things in perspective.”

“Is this why you and Milady were...close?”

“I was her sub for a while. Until you came along I thought all dominatrixes were like her.”

“Like her how?”

“Like they did what they wanted to do to you without taking your feelings into consideration.”

“Bad dominatrixes do that. The good ones are there for the client’s needs, not their own.”

“I get that now. Before I thought it was just the way it was, but I kept going back to her, because she was so good at giving me pain and getting me into subspace. Pain takes me out of myself, helps me forget for a while.”

“Subspace is good for that. I understand.”

“Choosing to be in pain helped me get to stage five of the grieving process.”

“Stage five is acceptance, right?”

“Right. Acceptance and tattooing.”

Nora laughed. “Getting tattoos is part of your grieving process?”

“When one part of your body is out of your control, it feels good to take control of another part. I can’t do anything about my brain, but I could master my skin. With ink and kink.”

“The tattoos are beautiful. I thought so the night I met you. All thorns, no roses.”

He held out his arm so she could see them close up. With her fingers she traced the winding thorny vine tattoos from his shoulder to his wrist.

“‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may / Old Time is still a-flying / And this same flower that smiles today / Tomorrow will be dying.’” Nora recited the famous Robert Herrick poem.

“Exactly,” Thorny said. “I want to live my life so that when I die, there’s not a single rosebud left on the bush. I will have picked them all and there’s nothing left on the ground but stems and thorns. Gathering rosebuds sounds much more romantic than notching the bedpost, right? And it’s better for the bed, too. Seriously, I notched my bedpost so much it broke off.”

“Hence the lumber heiress,” she said.

He pointed at her. “Precisely. Speaking of, I’m late for a very important date.”

“Here’s your card back.”

“Keep it,” Thorny said. “Who knows? You might need the Boyfriend Experience someday.”

Nora walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek.

“I just might. I’ve never had a real boyfriend before. Go have fun with your wood.”

“I always do.” In her doorway he stopped and turned back. “Oh, one more piece of advice, Mistress. You know, from one flesh peddler to another.”

“I’ll take all the advice I can get.”

“I like my clients. I love my work. But never forget, you’re not there to make friends. You’re there to do a job. Don’t get personally involved with your clients. And whatever you do, always get your money up front.”

With that he gave her a wink and walked out of her dungeon.

And then it hit her like a slap to the face—a really sexy slap that’s the precursor to hair pulling and rough and dirty sex. That kind of slap. The best kind of slap.

Always get your money up front.

Nora fished in her bag for her cell phone Kingsley had bought for her. She dialed his number and when Juliette answered, she asked for Kingsley.

“Oui, Maîtresse?” Kingsley said.

“Come to my dungeon tonight at nine.”

“Why?”

“Because I have good news,” she said. “I know how to pass your test.”

17

A Wicked Game

NORA TOOK A shower in her new dungeon bathroom and dressed in clothes from her new wardrobe—red skirt (leather), red-and-black-striped corset (silk), black boots (leather with red laces) and since Kingsley was the client tonight and no rule stayed unbroken for long around Kingsley, she put nothing on under the skirt except for one dot of perfume at the top of her thighs.

Two hours before the scene was to begin, she still didn’t know exactly what to do with Kingsley. She knew how to pass his test, yes. But after that? Her first session with her first client, it had to be good. No, not good. It had to be bad. Wicked. She wanted to ruin Kingsley so that he never looked at another dominatrix again. Fuck that. She wanted him to look at Søren and think him an amateur compared to her. Funny...she almost wanted to knock on Søren’s door and ask him for advice. Hey, she’d say, I’m about to top Kingsley, and I want it to be evil. Any suggestions? Oh, yes, that conversation would go over well, wouldn’t it? Nora laughed at the very thought of it.

But...

Maybe she didn’t need to call Søren. She already knew what he would do to Kingsley.

He would strip me naked and drop all my clothes onto the floor. Then he’d walk on them. With shoes on.

I worshipped him for it.

He would sometimes pretend I wasn’t there even when I spoke to him...

I worshipped him for it.

He would tell me he didn’t want me anymore and then as I was ready to kill myself in agony, he’d smile to show it was all a joke...

And I worshipped him for it.

I mocked him once for what happened between him and his sister and you know what he did...

Then Nora knew what she would do to him.

He’d either love her for it or hate her for it, but the man would get his money’s worth.

When nine o’clock arrived, Nora was ready. She heard a rapping on the door and opened it.

Kingsley waited outside her door looking every inch the gentleman he wasn’t in his dark suit with his French cuffs and silk tie.

“Bonne nuit, Maîtresse,” he said. “You summoned me?”

“I did,” Nora said, putting her hands on his chest and kissing him on both cheeks before giving him a long deep kiss on the mouth. A special kiss. The kind of kiss to drive a man to distraction. “Come in.”

He slipped past her into her new dungeon and she locked the door for privacy. Kingsley kept his submissive and masochistic side a secret from the rest of the Underground—only she, Søren and Juliette knew about it.

“Excellent work,” he said, taking a stroll of the bedroom and the dungeon, casual as an English lord taking his morning constitutional through Hyde Park. “I like the cross. Nice selection of toys. A dungeon worthy of a queen.”

“And you’re my first prisoner,” she said.

“Not yet.” He wagged his finger at her. “You said you know how to pass my test and you haven’t passed it yet. Until you do, you can’t have me. Although I don’t blame you for trying.”