Chapter 7

(January 17, 2007 Wednesday continued)

Galena

At the moment, none of the office-managers-in-training were on her Christmas card list. It would pass, as such things always did, but damn...

“Convince me not to do something stupid, Rhonda,” Galena said, leaning on the receptionist’s desk.

“Define ‘stupid’, G,” Rhonda replied. “If it’s likely to produce spectacular fireworks, I might just let you go ahead.”

“‘Stupid’ would be telling our overlord trio to either get their shit together, or to sit at their desks with their heads down until they could.”

Larry Downing was unimaginative, but rock steady, plowing his way through his work, head down, eyes on the next thing that needed doing. Sofia Hommel had all the imagination he lacked, and then some, but was at heart a school teacher – every “i” dotted, every “t” crossed, and always ‘show your work’. Janine Thomas ... well, she was creative enough to handle that side of it while Harry was away, but so flighty there was no follow-through on her ever-flowing flood of ideas unless someone else picked them up and ran with them.
“You know, together they almost make up a decent office manager,” Galena said.

“Do you think we could go all Dr. Frankenstein on them, do a mix-and-match?” Rhonda said. “I know where we can get an ECT machine...”

“And I have access to power tools,” Galena relied. “We can put on our own mad scientist show!”

The two of them laughed.

“Well, I’ve got to get back to work,” Galena said. “Try not to electrocute yourself licking batteries...”

“That only happened once,” Rhonda laughed. “Teach me not to lick a car battery...”
Thanks to Harry, there was a running joke at the office about Rhonda and her – totally fictitious - love of electroshock therapy.

Galena returned to her cubicle and went back to work on a commercial for Dale’s Guitar Shop. Losing Thad had put the office in a bit of a bind, so the visual arts side of the office was more busy than it might otherwise have been.

It would have been nice to have more time off, but the office hadn’t reopened until the 15^th, and realistically, Galena knew of no place else where paid holiday vacation would be so generous.

Still, she wished she could be back at Chorale South with Reggie and the rest of her sub-House.

Reggie was still having some problems adapting to such a totally different lifestyle than the one she’d lived before. She was appreciated, and desired, for her size, nobody thought she was stupid, no one was bullying her, no one ignored her – in other words, the complete opposite of how her birth family treated her – and that, more than any other changes inherent in her moving to Chorale South, seemed to confuse her.

Galena still had fantasies of visiting Reggie’s family with some of Chorale South’s security people. Ski masks and baseball bats, chaos and mayhem...

“Back to work,” she muttered.

Earl

“Margaret, tell me why those bastards are going to get away with this,” he growled, sloshing some coffee on the table as he grabbed his mug.

“I’m not sure they will, dear,” she replied. “If karma doesn’t get them – and soon – I’m pretty sure someone will take it upon themselves to give Marcus and Laurie a beating.”

Earl had spent part of his morning seeing Ricki, the eleven year old, through a pretty severe panic attack. There were rumors Marcie was going to be sent to Hawaii, and while everything seemed to make the fourteen year old, Quentin, more distant and surly, they had quite a different effect on Ricki.

“I’d like you to note,” Earl said, “I’m not making any damn comments about how this whole lifestyle messes kids up.”

“I so note, and I appreciate it, Earl,” Margaret replied. “I’d like you to note how well adjusted the Karghold and Sandalwood children are. Also note I haven’t banished you to the bunker for making any such comments.”

“I so note. Keith Simi is playing at John Lee’s tonight. Wanna go?”

“You thinking the back room?”

“Why would I take you out to somewhere talking is more important than the music? Of course the back room!”
“All right, just so long as we have that straight. Go tell Dommi she’s in charge of the circus this evening.”

“Not a problem, you deserve a night out,” Dommi said. “Any special instructions where Ricki’s concerned?”

“Well,” Earl replied, “I put on my amateur head-shrinker hat ... decided Marcie needed to spend some time with them before she went off to become another of my son-in-law’s women, so all three of them are staying in the same suite until she leaves.”

“You don’t sound happy, Earl,” Dommi said, grinning impishly. “You know she needs a dominant male in her life right now...”

“Yeah, but she’s those boys’ mother. She belongs with them! Hell, I’d send them with her to Hawaii, but I imagine my son-in-law wouldn’t want kids around to mess up his honeymoon.”

“Earl, you know – if you pull your head out of your ass – Harry would be okay with it if it was best for the kids...”

“Maybe ... but I can imagine how they’re wandering around the estate, and I don’t want...”

“What? Don’t want the boys to see what they’re going to see here no matter what?” Dommi chuckled.

Earl growled at Dommi.

“Do ... Not ... Get ... Me ... Started...

“No,” Earl continued, more calmly, “they deserve this time alone.”

“Well, we have a lack of strong males – or even semi-strong males – for her to latch on to around here. I’d suggest Eddie, but I’m pretty sure he’d strangle me for it.

“Of course, there is another strong male in the house...”

“Who? I’m willing to consider anything that keeps her and those boys together.”

“They’d have to understand,” Dommi said, “that the whole submissive experience is the best thing for her right now. She’s a bratty sub who needs physical discipline, with a strong sexual component...”

“Much as it ... well, to be truthful it doesn’t sicken me, not anymore. Much as it ... disturbs me ... I have to agree with you. She’s a bundle of need right now, and I’m pretty sure keeping her in close proximity to the boys for long when she’s this distraught isn’t the best option.”

“Well, I’m glad you see it that way. When will you take her to bed?”

“What?”

“You don’t want it to be Harry, not on their honeymoon at least, and neither of us want Eddie to strangle us...”

“No, no way,” Earl stammered. “What about those ... the guys ... Sandalwood?”

“We could ask, but if we do, I’d go real low-key ... there are beginning to be some bad feelings brewing in the former Sandalwood,” Dommi said. “They’re feeling like the Grimes get all the fun – trips and honeymoons and such – and they’re left behind to do all the hard or boring work.

“And they have a point ... not that the trips and honeymoons have been all fun and games, far from it, and they know that, but these bad feelings are emotional, not logical.”

“Fine, Marcie and the boys go to Hawaii.”

Andrew

He stared at Kelly, and her bodyguard, as they walked up to the ‘guest house’.

While he was intellectually ready for the interview, emotionally he was already having to fight to keep his shit together. On top of that, he had to ignore her appearance ... which was never easy where Kelly Culberson-Grimes was concerned. Even in her ‘sackcloth and ashes’ attire – collar, bare feet, shapeless sleeveless gray dress that hung to her knees - she was lovely ... and incredibly sexy.

Andrew had to remain focused on what she’d done with the power she enjoyed.

And not get too specific about the details.

Wordlessly he led her and the guard into the house and nodded toward the couch.

“What can I get the two of you?” Teuila asked, and Andrew stifled his growl.

His efforts to keep it stifled weren’t helped by Kelly’s grin.

“It’s totally okay to hate me,” she said. “I’d say let it loose, but I gather you’d prefer I be gone as soon as possible, and yelling at me would only prolong my visit.”

“How could you be so fucking stupid?” he spat.

Kelly rubbed her forehead.

“It’s easier than you might think,” she said. “Part kid-in-a-candy-store, part ego-boost-overload, part believing-my-own-bullshit, part young-dumb-and-full-of-cum ... and there I was, dancing right on the edge of ... disaster, abomination, cluster-fuck, violation...”

“Rape.”

“Yeah. I hope you don’t mind that I’m not figuratively on my knees, addressing you as a Dom ... in a more social situation I would be, hell, I want to be, but ... this interview is going to be hard enough on both of us as it is.”

Andrew was able to see past his anger a bit, and nodded.

“Anything you or your security would like?”

Kelly smiled.

“I don’t know about Bert, but I’d love some coffee, thank you.”

“I’ll be patching your answers in to my normal broadcast style, if that’s okay with you?”

“Fine, Master Kiraly. Do this however you need to.”

“So, favorite social lubricant?”

“Pot ... of which there is a wealth of strains available here, truly a metric fuckton of them. And, to be fair, the way it affects me is much preferable to my second choice – iced Stoli shots.”

“All right, first piece of recorded music you ever owned?”

“C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat”. 8-year-old me was notorious for listening to the title track on repeat, dancing my skinny butt off, screaming “Everybody dance now!” at the top of my lungs. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked my parents for not killing me during that phase...”

“You probably should,” Andrew replied, smiling in spite of himself. “Can you sing any of it?”

“Well, I could scream “Everybody dance now!” if you’d like, but I’m well aware the proper answer to that question, unless you’re Carol, is ‘no’.”

“Right you are. Side question, does she sing around the house?”

“Not as much as any of us would like, but more than she realizes.”

“That must be lovely.”

“It is.”

“All right, first live concert you ever attended?”

“Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca” tour. Oh my God, that was fun. Not so much for my father, who insisting on chaperoning my friends and I ... although I did see him shuffling his feet and nodding to the beat. But being surrounded by screaming teen-agers...”

“Having met your father ... I ... uh ... I cannot picture that in my head. Your mother, yeah, but not your father.”

“Well, Mom would have enjoyed it, and Daddy thought about it, but the logistics of maneuvering a blind woman through the crowds at a concert like that ... no.

“Although she loved to dance with me at home.”

“And having met your mother as well, that I have no problem visualizing.

“Now, who would you send to their doom via fiery airplane crash?”

“Well, let me get by with the three Nelson offspring who humiliated members of our House. What they did at the New Year’s Eve party was so far over the line...”

Kelly tried to ignore the tears, the sobs, but couldn’t.

Andrew cut the recording almost immediately.

“Teuila, if you would, get Kelly some kleenex.”

After a time, she calmed down, and Andrew said, “Somehow, I don’t think what got to you was what happened at the party.”

“No. But that’s the official story. And I’m not sure if their deaths have been publicly announced. So, start recording.”

He gave her a ‘go’ signal.

“I’m not going to use their names, but I think the three Nelson siblings who publicly embarrassed us all New Year’s Eve should die in a fiery plane crash.”

“Why won’t you use their names?”

“Potential legal situations arising from their behavior, and they don’t deserve names. I don’t name shit that I scrape off my shoes, I won’t name them.”
“Fair enough. Let’s move on to the circumstances that have led to your current situation.

“You took advantage of another Dom’s submissives, using them as you would without his permission, in front of him and other members of his family. Would that be a fair assessment?”

“Yes. And before anyone says anything, he was an inexperienced Dom, and I was a senior Dominant in our mutual House. He could have said something, if he’d had the confidence, other members of his family could have said something ... but the thing is, Master Kiraly, I’m not sure anything they could have said would have stopped me.”

“To be fair, the submissives involved have since admitted they enjoyed themselves, correct?”

“Yes, they have, but that’s completely beside the point. There are issues of courtesy, and if the Dom had problems telling me I was stepping over the line, really, how likely were the subs to say anything?

“I didn’t ask, I just took, and I’m exceedingly lucky no official notice was taken.”

“Although notice was taken, wasn’t it?”

“Anyone who hasn’t heard the story by now, here goes. The wife of the Dom in question, at their wedding reception, called me out – pads on the floor, ass whuppin’ time, if we plucked out each others eyes we give them back afterward.

“I was monumentally arrogant, stupid, naive enough to believe I’d kick her ass.

“And while ass indeed did get thoroughly kicked, I did none of the kicking, and was instead the kickee. I was resoundingly beaten, and deserved every bruise of it and more.”

“And your punishment didn’t end there, did it?”

“No it didn’t. I won’t go into those further punishments, but they were an instrumental part of my rethinking my position as a Domme in Chorale.”

“Would you care to go into that further?”

Kelly sighed, rubbing her eyes with thumb and forefinger.

“This wasn’t the first time I’d crossed the line, and I’d been punished before, but never like I was for this. With various people I love and respect telling me just how close I’d come to crossing a line I couldn’t un-cross ... I had to question whether a being a good Domme was more than just in a scene... that I’m told I handled well. The day-to-day? I royally sucked at.

“And that’s something neither I nor my House can tolerate.”

“So, you quit the leash, took up the collar?”

“Permanently.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as, perhaps ... overreacting?”

“Look, Master Kiraly ... if I had just lower-case ‘fucked up’, yeah, it’d be overreacting. But after numerous warnings, punishments, and in spite of knowing better ... I just kept being an asshole.

“I may – someday – pretend to hold the leash for a party or somesuch. But right now, I cannot imagine doing so. And before you ask,” Kelly continued, anger in her voice, “the permanence is because I’ve proven to myself I cannot be trusted not to cut myself slack I have not earned.

“If I give myself an out, I will be tempted to use it. If I’m tempted to use it, I will use it. If I use it, I will misuse it. So, permanence.”

“All right, far be it for me to argue. So, on a somewhat different line of questioning ... were you so ... impulsive ... when you were younger? If not, what made the difference?”

“No ... I may have – scratch that, I did want to be, but I had Earl and Margaret Culberson around to put my ego in check.”

Kelly smirked, then chuckled.

“For a good eight years, Master Kiraly, my name might as well have been ‘Little Miss Twisty-Butt’ around the house. My father was greatly amused by my efforts to ... hmm ... walk with a womanly roll to my hips, when I was eight or so. Not that I had any hips, any ass, to roll, but I was trying.

“And he was laughing. Once he described it to my mother, she was laughing. When the nickname got dropped...

“Well, one day when I was sixteen, Dad said “Margaret, she’s got hips, she’s got a butt, and they’re dancing” and while I was mortified – because I’d stopped even dreaming of having that kind of walk – the magic had happened, I wasn’t having to try, and my nickname went back to ‘Trouble’ ... although I think I’d added some new kinds of trouble to justify it.

“Mom and Dad were both strict, but not restrictive, if that makes any sense. They were okay with pretty much anything I did, so long as I did it responsibly. They didn’t doubt I was going to try grown-up vices, didn’t doubt I was going to have sex – well, okay, Daddy would still prefer I never had sex, or never had it again, but that’s a ‘Dad’ thing – but as long as I wasn’t stupid about it, they could cope. I always knew I could call my folks, and Daddy would come get me, until I left for college, stand by me, defend me, whatever. Once I was in Waterloo and they were still in Kansas ... well, he’d come, it just might take a little longer.

“And if the shit was really serious, Mom would come along, and then ... well, it was Revelations 6:8 time.”

“Excuse me?”

“And I looked, and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”

“Ah,” Andrew said, laughing.

“And at TU ... they always had my back, whatever happened, and were happy to help me financially, so long as I was studying. They didn’t care what. Didn’t care what I majored in – and I’ve gone through a lot of majors – just so long as I was going to class, and making good grades, they were happy. As teachers, they’re both very big on education.

“And while my freshman year, there was some slippage, I had two disciplines working on me – I had to get good grades, and I had to hold down a part-time job, because while they were happy to help, there were limits to what the budget could afford. So, between those two, I was okay.”

“And then the Grimes...”

“And then Carol. Then Harry. Then Margo. And I found myself in love, not with one, not two, but three people. I tried to pretend I wasn’t, and I did manage to fool myself and Harry about it, but little Miss Hoodoo Woman, I couldn’t fool her, and I don’t think I fooled Margo all that well.

“But when we finally got all that sorted out, there wasn’t the discipline of school – for the moment – and there wasn’t the discipline of having to hold down a job, and ... and there was power.

“Or the perception of it.”

Andrew would edit out the silence that followed.

“Have you ever thought how much a lot of us have invested in this game we play?” Kelly asked.

“Some, yeah.”

“Something I’d urge anyone, Dom, sub ... lifetime sub ... to realize it’s just a game. And for those who might feel trapped in their position, serving people who don’t treat it as a game, House Chorale will help.”

“Did you come here planning to say that?”

“No ... but I feel very safe in speaking for my House in this regard. We will help. It may take some finagling, but that’s okay. My House is good at finagling.”

“Kelly, you’ve just finished explaining that you are no longer a Dominant, that you can’t be trusted in a position of authority, and now you’re trying to bind your House to a policy that could cause infinite headaches for everyone, not least Madam Grimes. I cannot, absolutely cannot let you do that.””

“And I’ll have Carol use your guts for garters if you don’t.”

“Oh, I’ll broadcast it...

“Speaking as a Dominant of House Chorale and as its official spokesperson to Society at large, I stand behind Kelly’s statement. Come to any of us. We’re listening.” Andrew paused. “Now we’re both for the chopping block, may the Gods have mercy on our souls.”

Karen

Their early supper hadn’t been as tense as Karen had expected it to be. There had been towels provided for their seats, and large generous napkins to cover their crotches.

“We may be nude lesbians,” Trish had told her, “but no one wants to be eating and looking at your hoo-hah ... from what I’ve read, it’s as serious a breach of etiquette as chewing with your mouth open.”

Thankfully Trish had also reminded her of a more practical reality.

Reaching for something was liable to end up with a tit in the sauce.

She’d also warned Karen not to order soup, but the restaurant didn’t even offer soups. Hot fluids and naked bodies ... not a good mix.

So, she’d survived it, even enjoyed it. Plus it helped that everyone’s eyes were on their meals, and if hers and Trish’s were anything to go by, everyone’s food was worth the attention.

After returning to their cabin, they were sitting out on their patio, which Trish referred to as ‘the veranda’, enjoying the late afternoon view.

Karen was emphatically trying not to think about anything except her wife, her honeymoon, and perhaps going for a swim a bit later.

Of course, her brain didn’t give a shit about her intentions.

“Trish ... about you getting pregnant...”

“Liz, do you really want to talk about that now?”

“No, but my brain isn’t getting the message, so I will. If you really want to do things the natural way...”

“Liz, I’d prefer it, but I’d prefer your peace of mind more. I’m at peace with the – figurative I hope – turkey baster.”

Patricia leaned back, and took a sip of her tea.

“But while we’re semi-on-the-subject, how did you and Harry meet? I mean, I know it was at school, but that’s really all I know.”

“Oh, honey, therein lies a tale that’s gonna require more serious libations than iced tea...”

Andrew

“So, now you’ve visited Chicago and San Francisco, what impressions do you have of their Society compared to Waterloo, and Texas in general?”

“Do you really believe I’m going to answer that question, Master Kiraly? I cannot conceive of an answer that wouldn’t stir up trouble in some way or other.”

Andrew laughed.
“Fair point. Pretty sure I didn’t think that question out. Is there anything you’d like to say about the differences, anything at all, non-controversial?”

“The exposure to Society in different cities had brought home to me that people are people. While some of us might like to pretend we’re inherently better than others of us, the reality is we aren’t. Our ability to change, to learn, to grow ... no one is inherently better.