Cardinal's Rule

Chapter Two

Mistress Cardinal.

The man, naked except for his custom-tooled leather collar, knelt on the floor in the breakfast nook, his forehead touching the cool tile that he’d finished hand scrubbing and towel drying minutes earlier. He didn’t speak, simply waited on her. She let him kneel there for ten minutes while she read her Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

“Are you finished?” she eventually asked without looking up from her newspaper.

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Baseboards?”

“Yes, Mistress. As you instructed.”

“Very good.” She finally looked down at him. “I’m in the mood to play.” She glanced at the time. “Our session ends in ten minutes. I haven’t selected a partner for tonight. If you’d like, you may go with me.”

He nodded without looking up. “Yes, Mistress. I’d be honored to go with you.”

“This is outside of our business arrangement. I’ll be harsh.”

“Yes, Mistress. I understand.”

“Very good. You may get dressed. Come back here tonight at eight to pick me up.”

“Thank you, Mistress!” He crawled over to her, kissed her feet, then backed away before standing and leaving the breakfast nook. He was one of only two clients she let touch her at all, even though it was only to kiss her hands and feet.

She examined her nails. She had them done earlier that morning, a deep metallic blood red.

Perfect for playing.

Standing and stretching, she went to examine his handiwork. The kitchen appeared utterly spotless. He’d left his “tribute” on the counter, one hundred dollars. Cash.

Smiling, she took the money and tucked it into her jeans. He was a good client. He also never asked to fuck her. She’d quit counting the number of clients she’d dropped because they became too emotionally attached to her or started pressuring her for sexual acts. That wasn’t part of her services.

She was a pro Domme.

They wanted sex, they could hire a prostitute. She gave them more.

She gave them what they needed, not what they wanted.

He returned a moment later, dressed in jeans and a light blue button-up shirt. Head bowed, he walked over to her. His collar was still locked around his neck. He was one of the few clients she’d specially ordered a collar for. Most of them got one of the pet store generic play collars that made them feel submissive. Bob had been using her services for over three years now, one of her oldest clients.

Every two weeks at least, sometimes more often as his schedule allowed. In fact, she gave him every fourth visit for half price, and every tenth one free.

She fingered the collar. “Do you have anywhere else to go today?”

He shook his head. “No, Mistress. Straight home, then back here to meet you.”

She smiled. “Keep the collar on then.” With an elegantly lacquered finger, she tipped his chin so she could look into his blue eyes. Even with her stiletto heels he stood taller than her. He had nice eyes.

Nice body, too. Nicer than average. “Tonight is special. Social. Not business. Understand?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“You’ve been an exceptionally good boy for me. I like to reward good behavior. You want to bear my marks with pride?”

“Yes, Mistress. Please.”

“No tribute from you tonight, but I will expect you to pay our cover charge. It’s twenty per person. You can pay that?”

“Yes, Mistress! Gladly.”

She smiled. “I’ll see you tonight then.” She offered her hand and he kissed it before hurrying out the door.

Would her neighbors notice his collar? Probably not. She watched through the living room windows as he scurried out to his Mercedes parked in her driveway. Five years old, but he kept it detailed.

Nice guy. Divorced, no kids. He ran a mortgage firm and had no time for a girlfriend. He wasn’t into humiliation, but he craved strict service, obedience, and discipline. While not a pain slut, because of his need to obey he would take a lot of heavy impact play.

She looked around the house. Her house, almost paid off. Another six months and she would own it free and clear.

She had time for a work out. She changed clothes and cranked her music loud on the stereo before tackling the elliptical machine for an hour. By the time she finished she was drenched with sweat and her legs trembled.

In the shower, she rested her head against the cool tile and let the water run over her and tried not to let her mind wander. Over the years she’d gotten a lot better at not thinking about her past.

Two men sat in a dim corner of the club. They’d arrived nearly an hour earlier. The Master, Landry, sat on a leather sofa and watched players on various pieces of equipment. The other sat on the floor at his feet, his head bowed.

“Closer” by Nine Inch Nails thumped on the stereo. “You see anyone you know?” Landry asked from the sofa.

The man on the floor shook his head without looking up. “No, Master.”

“No one at all?”

“It’s been over five years.”

“True.”

They sat and watched people play.

Ross led Loren by the hand into the club’s entryway. “Tilly coming tonight?”

“Yes, Sir. I talked to her this afternoon. She’s bringing her boy, Bob.”

He looked surprised. “She must be serious about him. That’s like the third time she’s brought him to the club.”

Loren snorted in amusement. “Um, yeah. I don’t think so. This is Tilly we’re talking about. He’s her best client. She wanted to reward him, that’s all.” She remembered herself. “Sir.”

He overlooked her little bout of sarcastic tone and checked them in. Shouldering their gear bag, he led Loren inside the dungeon play area where they found a place for their gear. Before they could make a run at the buffet table, their friend Ed shuffled up and pulled them close.

“Guess what I heard?” His voice sounded a little muffled because of the black leather hood he wore, but they recognized him from the red stiletto heels and ankle shackles his wife made him wear.

Ross grinned. “Scientists finally found your nads?”

“Asshole. No. Scuttlebutt is Cristo was spotted at the club in Ybor last night.”

Ross and Loren exchanged a look. “That’s not funny,” Ross said.

“Do I look like I’m laughing?” Not that they could tell one way or the other with his hood.

“They said he was there with some guy. Get this, the guy was his fucking Master and topped him in a pretty heavy scene. They got really intense.”

Loren snorted. “Okay, now I know someone yanked your chain besides your wife. Count

Craptastic being topped? By a guy? No fucking way.” Count Craptastic was only one of the many nicknames Loren had come up with for Cristo over the years, and it was one of the nicer ones.

It was the only PG-rated one.

“I’m serious!” Ed insisted.

“Who’s your source?” Ross asked.

“Kim and Kylee.”

Ross and Loren froze. “What?” Ross asked, certain he’d misheard. “No shit?”

“Yeah. And Kim and Kylee knew him.”

“Did they talk to him?” Loren demanded. “Ask him anything? Oh like, maybe, what the fuck?”

Loren’s face reddened in anger.

“They didn’t talk to him. They weren’t sure it was him at first. Not until the guys were scening, but Kim and Kylee had to leave because they rode up there with someone else. They saw his tat. They said they’d swear it was him.”

“Who else knows?” Ross asked. Kim and Kylee couldn’t make it to the club that night because of work.

“No one. They wanted me to tell you because they couldn’t find your phone number.”

“If you fucking breathe a word of this to anyone, especially to Tilly, I’ll fucking crush your nuts myself,” Ross threatened.

“Dude, I’m not brain dead. Kim and Kylee wanted you to have a heads up about it. So you could, you know, keep an eye on Tilly.” He shuffled away, mindful of the short chain joining his ankles, to rejoin his wife.

Normally, people within the scene didn’t usually talk about others. One of the unwritten protocols.

However, everyone in their small circle of friends remembered how fragile and broken Tilly had been at first. They’d witnessed her transformation into who she was today.

They all wanted to kill Cris for abandoning her, even this many years later.

Loren looked at Ross. “What do we do?”

He shrugged. “Nothing we can do. We don’t even know for sure it was him, despite what they said.” His face darkened. “If he does show up, I’ll deal with him. He’ll wish he’d never come back.”

The slave sat at Landry’s feet and watched. Ross and Loren talked with another man in the far corner. Then Ross looked angry for a moment before he regained his composure.

Loren, however, appeared homicidal for several minutes.

He cringed. Perhaps simple paranoia, but maybe he and his Master had been spotted at the Ybor club the night before.

Landry leaned forward and stroked his hair. “Talk to me. Who do you see? Do you know them?”

“Yes, Master.”

Landry tightly fisted his hand in the slave’s hair and wrenched his head back painfully. “Who?”

He told him who they were.

“So we chose well tonight. Good.” Landry released his grip on the slave’s hair.

“May we please leave?”

Landry laughed. “No. I can’t believe you’d even ask.”

The slave lowered his head, hoping he wasn’t seen or recognized. He felt badly enough.

Landry sensed his thoughts. “You brought this on yourself, slave. Had you told me the full truth in the beginning, we wouldn’t be here now.”

The slave remained silent and felt grateful for his long hair. It fell to his shoulders, and when he kept his head tilted down, it hung along his cheeks, hiding his face. He kept his eyes on Ross and Loren, praying they didn’t walk over.

Ten minutes later, a couple entered the dungeon play space. With their backs to the slave, they were far enough away, and the lighting dim enough, that he couldn’t tell if he knew them or not. The woman held a leather leash clipped to a collar around the man’s neck. The man carried a gear bag. With her trim, borderline gaunt but lithely muscled body, he guessed her to be a long-distance runner. Her short, spiked hair had been dyed the color of a bright copper penny.

When she made a hand gesture, the man obediently dropped to his knees next to her. She stood and talked with Ross and Loren for a few minutes as she twined her fingers in the man’s hair. He leaned in and rested his head against her thigh, his body relaxing in a content way he himself knew all too well.

Landry watched too. “Do you know her?”

There was something familiar about her, but the slave couldn’t get a good look at her face. Her purple corset accentuated shifting highlights in the fabric of her knee-length green skirt. “I’m not sure.”

“The man?”

“No.”

Satisfied, Landry sat back and watched.

The woman, her back still to them, tugged on the leash and urged the man to his feet. She led him across the room to a St. Andrew’s Cross. There, she had him strip, affixed leather cuffs to his wrists and ankles, then hooked him to the structure. After a few minutes of warming him up by spanking his ass with her bare hands, she started in on him with a stingy flogger. She was vicious, a true sadist with very little in the way of sensual play in her style. She paused after a few minutes, checked in with the man, then switched to a riding crop. Red welts appeared on the man’s backside and thighs.

“She has good form,” Landry observed. “I wonder who she learned from.”

By the time she finished nearly thirty minutes later, the man was crying, sobbing, his entire back, shoulders, ass, and thighs marked from the crop, cane, and singletail whip she’d used on him, yet he never uttered a safeword. She helped him over to a nearby corner and wrapped him with a blanket, sitting there with him for several long minutes and giving him aftercare, the first time she’d expressed even the slightest tenderness with the man. Eventually, she left him sitting there while she cleaned up the cross and their equipment. Then she rejoined him and offered him a bottle of water.

She sat with her arm around him and let the man rest his head against her shoulder. For the first time, the slave was able to get a good, long look at her face in the dim room.

His breath caught.

It couldn’t be!

Landry leaned forward again. “Stay here.” He stood and walked over to the buffet table where he got them bottles of water from a nearby cooler. He stopped and talked to one man for a moment, laughing and smiling, until he thanked the other man and returned. He retook his seat on the sofa and handed the slave a bottle.

“Her name is Mistress Cardinal.”

The slave tried not to react. She’d never been fat, but she not only lost over thirty pounds by his best guess, but had chopped off and dyed her long, beautiful hair.

It couldn’t be her.

Not his sweet, gentle Redbird.

He watched as the woman finally allowed the man to get dressed. While he did, she headed for the bathroom.

Landry stood and picked up the gear bag he’d brought with them. “Come on, slave. Let’s go.”

He kept his head down as he followed Landry. He prayed Ross and Loren didn’t recognize him, but they walked past them to the far end of the dungeon play space without incident. There, Landry quickly outfitted him with a hood and made him strip.

Landry put the slave’s hands on the bench so he could feel it. The hood didn’t allow him to see.

“Get into position and wait for me.”

Landry didn’t want to cuff him yet since he left him unattended. He waited until Mistress

Cardinal returned from the bathroom to seek her out.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he started, “but I was told you might be able to help me.”

She suspiciously sized him up, her hazel gaze guarded. “About what?”

He handed her a business card. “I have a slave in dire need of training.”

That seemed to relax her. She studied his business card. “I’m sorry, Mr. LaCroux. I don’t work with women.”

“He’s not a woman, although there are times I’ve seriously considered gelding him.” When he laughed, she laughed with him, her body language relaxing a little more.

“Hold on.” She went to her bag and returned with a business card of her own. Just her name and a local phone number he suspected went to an untraceable cell phone. “Call me and set up an appointment. I’m very expensive. I also don’t offer any sexual services. I’ll warn you, I have a vicious reputation.”

“Perfect. Exactly what he needs.” He pointed across the room to the bench where his slave knelt, waiting. “I don’t think I’m vicious enough.”

Tilly watched the man walk back to the bench. She collected Bob and went to say good-bye to

Ross and Loren. They seemed nervous, had acted a little tense all evening. She wondered if they’d had a fight but she’d have to wait until tomorrow to call Loren and talk to her.

To leave, she had to walk past the benches on the far end of the space. As she did she saw the man, Landry LaCroux, playing with his slave. Bob nearly ran into her when she suddenly stopped without warning. The tattoo on his slave’s left ass cheek…

She stared. It wasn’t unusual. Lots of people probably had that same tattoo, or one similar. A Kanji character. They looked a lot alike to most people anyway, including her.

Even in that same place. She’d seen lots of people with tattoos in that location. It was popular because it was discreet.

And it had been five years. She could easily be wrong.

Without warning, her mind flashed back to a memory of her fingers tracing the Kanji character on Cris’ flesh, always fascinated by it, never quite satisfied when Cris said he was drunk when he got it and couldn’t remember what it meant, but willing to let the explanation go.

He was her Master.

And in her heart, she knew the shape of that character, could trace it in her dreams.

Her mind rebelled, insisting she was wrong.

“Take me home, Bob,” she said, forcing her eyes from their scene. Landry started going after the guy with vicious swings from a crop that immediately raised welts. He needed help controlling his slave?

Well, money is money.

Bob drove her home. Once there, he opened her car door for her, carried the toy bag, and escorted her to her front door.

She wondered if he’d try to kiss her goodnight or not.

Unlocking the front door, she said, “Bring that inside and put it in the playroom.”

He hurried to comply while she set her purse on the counter and kicked off her heels with a sigh of relief. When he returned he dropped to his knees in front of her and waited.

She studied him in silence. She felt affection for him, but she couldn’t say she loved him.

She wasn’t capable of love anymore.

After a moment she ran her fingers through his hair. “How do you feel?”

“Good, Mistress.”

“Do you hurt?”

“Yes, but I don’t mind.”

“You’re a very good boy, Bob.”

“Thank you, Mistress.”

For a fleeting moment she tried to imagine what he’d look like kneeling on the floor next to her bed, going down on her.

She couldn’t.

With a reluctant sigh she affectionately ruffled his hair. “Can you come for a play date one day or evening this week? For free. I feel like rewarding you again.”

“Yes, Mistress. Thank you! Anytime you say.”

“Tuesday night, seven o’clock. You may go.”

He stood, his head bowed, and kissed her hand when she offered it. “Thank you, Mistress.

Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

She didn’t move until after she heard his car start and pull out of her drive. She locked the front door and turned off the lights. She didn’t know why she offered him another freebie. That wasn’t like her. She liked to space rewards far enough apart that the client wouldn’t expect them.

He was single.

She stripped and stood in the shower, the water as hot as she could stand it. If only she could feel passion, love, anything.

She couldn’t even blame it on the anti-depressants, because she’d had herself weaned off those six months after…

She stopped herself from thinking his name. That fucking tat on Landry’s slave had totally screwed with her equilibrium.

A long time ago she’d quit engaging in the I wonder where he is? game. Because it hurt almost as badly as the I wonder who he’s with? game, but not nearly as bad as the Why wasn’t I good enough for him? game.

It was the only explanation that made sense. Another woman. It had to be. Cris never spoke of his family or his past other than in the blandest of ways. He’d been estranged from his family for years, she knew that, she just didn’t know why.

Considering her own crappy background, she’d respected his desire to not talk about it.

As she finished her shower and climbed into bed, she tried to focus on Bob’s face and realized without him in front of her, she really couldn’t recall anything but his blue eyes and the rounded shape of his naked back as he knelt on the floor while awaiting her instructions.

Naked, the slave knelt on the motel room floor and waited for his Master to finish showering.

Landry had been particularly vicious that night during their scene, as the slave had expected. Had been vicious ever since Master discovered the secret he’d kept.

The slave didn’t deny he deserved it. And more.

Although nothing his Master dished out could compare to the mental agony he went through every day. The guilt.

The self-loathing.

The regret.

He heard the water shut off and Landry emerged a moment later, drying himself with a towel.

“You sleep on the floor tonight, slave,” he said. “No pillow, no sheets.” He walked over to the A/C unit and turned the temperature down as far as it would go.

It would be a long, cold night.

“Yes, Master.”

Landry sat on the edge of one of the beds and stared at him. “I did more asking around before we left the club. That man wasn’t her boyfriend, he was one of her clients.”

The slave prayed he masked his surprise well enough so it didn’t show.

And his hope. Of course, he knew hope was a stupid emotion to have. He totally belonged to his Master, heart, mind, body, and soul, and she no longer belonged to him.

Still, old habits and feelings died hard.

Landry continued. “Apparently she’s single. One person hinted something very bad happened to her a few years ago but they wouldn’t talk about it. Of course, I couldn’t push them, it would bring suspicion.”

The slave closed his eyes, wishing he didn’t have to sit and listen to this. He’d prefer another vicious beating. At least that pain ended relatively quickly and sent his mind to a beautiful place where he could temporarily abandon thought.

Landry spread his legs and in French ordered, “Come here and suck my cock.”

Obediently, he knelt between Landry’s legs and performed as required, wishing for a little tenderness, even a kind and gentle word, and knowing his Master wasn’t yet ready to allow that.

Landry grabbed his head and forced him to go deep. He swallowed his shaft and waited him out until he finally came.

When Landry finally released him, he pointed to the floor. “Go on. You’re done.”

The slave bowed his head, curled up on his side, and prayed for sleep.

Prayed for forgiveness.

Prayed his Master didn’t force him to face Tilly.