Domme By Default

Chapter 8 him

I found the information about the Munch, held at a local restaurant on the mid to upscale end of things. I printed out the information, walked into the living room and knelt in front of her.

She finally looked up from her laptop. "Yes?"

I handed her the paper. She studied it for several long minutes. "You want to go?"

"Yes, Mistress."

She frowned. "Okay, seriously, let's talk about this. Are you sure you really want to do this?"

I'd thought about it.

I did.

I nodded.

"You're not worried about seeing someone there you know?"

I shrugged. "They'll be in the same boat I am." I hoped I'd made that sound as casual as I planned. Frankly, I was nervous about it, but my desire to go overrode my common sense. If she knew how nervous I really was she'd put the kibosh on it.

She studied the paper for a little longer, then nodded.

"Okay. You can make our reservations."

Three days before the Munch, she added several new lines to the daily task list I had to read through. Safeword protocol.

She was more worried about this than I was, apparently.

God I loved her for it. She always took such good care of me.

I would wear my regular collar for this as well as my day collar. My dress shirt and necktie mostly hid my regular collar. Hid it well enough.

She drove. As soon as the car was in park, I jumped out and raced around to her door to open it, waiting, holding it for her while she took her time shutting down the car and getting out.

She smiled and kissed me. "Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me, Mi—Sweetheart." I almost screwed up. One thing she insisted on was me not calling her Mistress in public around others. We'd mutually agreed upon Sweetheart in its place. Vanilla and safe enough for any location.

I offered her my arm and held the restaurant door for her.

We checked in with the hostess and my wife handled things from there, as she'd instructed me she would. She told the hostess we were part of the "computer club."

We were escorted to a large back meeting room. Around twenty people were already there. We were about fifteen minutes early.

I remained at my wife's side as she found the woman in charge and introduced us by our first names. Everyone seemed friendly and nice and ... well, normal. A couple of the women and two of the men wore what could probably safely be called collars of some sort, but not obvious ones. A few had some tattoos and body piercings, but for the most part everyone there could have been us.

We took our seats. I hurried to hold my wife's chair for her. Another couple sat next to us, a woman and a man, and he held the chair for her, too.

The woman, speaking to my wife, introduced themselves.

My wife handled our introduction. After a few minutes the four of us were chatting about pretty much everything except the elephant taking a craptacular dump in the middle of the room.

My wife apparently hit her limit and finally asked the other woman, "Tell me to take a hike if this isn't the right protocol, but this is our first Munch and I've got a lot of questions..."

Twenty minutes later, us two men had learned far more intimate details about each other than we ever would have in normal polite company, I'm sure. And we didn't have to say a word. At one point he looked at me and sort of shrugged, and I did the same.

Staying quiet seemed a safe option for both of us.

My wife asked me a direct question. I was about to respond when my eye fell on the doorway. While we were talking, several people had arrived, bringing the total number of attendees to around thirty-five. But the latest arrivals...

Holy shit.

I didn't know the woman. I knew that Tom, the guy in the office down the hall from me, wasn't married. Beyond that, I didn't know much about him. I had a feeling I was about to learn a lot, though.

The holy shit look on his face when he saw me had to mirror mine.

My wife snapped her fingers at me and then she recognized my expression and followed my gaze.

"Do we need to go talk?" she quietly asked. That was our pre-arranged code.

I nervously shook my head. "Not yet."

The only open place for two people at that point was on our other side. My co-worker looked like he was being marched to the electric chair.

Then the first woman who'd sat with us smiled and waved at the woman with Tom. "Oh, hey! Glad you made it."

The three of us men sat there quietly listening to the conversation until our food arrived.

Eventually the women brought us into the chat and we all loosened up a little.

I'll admit I was too nervous to look around and get to know many of the people there. Most of them were male Doms with female subs, one female Domme with a female sub, a couple other female Dommes with male subs, then these three women with us. A couple of people were there alone, male and female, and seemed to know several of the other members.

I have to admit I did enjoy myself. As we mingled and talked with others, I learned we weren't alone on the "tamer" end of the scale. That relieved me. I felt a little less freakish amongst the freaks, so to speak.

By the time we were finished a couple of hours later, I stood at my wife's side while she said our good-byes and my eyes met Tom's.

He nodded.

I nodded back.

When we bumped into each other at a meeting Monday morning, neither of us acknowledged the other any differently than we had on any other day. But now I realized what the unusual necklace he always wore, intricately braided leather with a small pewter tag I'd originally assumed was a charm, probably signified.

He made no comment about my ID bracelet either.