Teach Me Tender, Teach Me Rough Read online

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Belts.”

  “I didn’t quite hear you.”

  “Belts,” she repeated. “Dark imaginary men would come to me and whip me with their belts. I would have to take off all my clothes and lie naked on my belly. They would give me a thorough going over, striking me again and again. They wouldn’t stop until I was crying, confessing what a slut I was, such a bad girl for wanting sexy things.”

  “And what about rape?”

  “In real life you mean?” The idea horrified her.

  “No, in your fantasies, did these men force themselves on you? Did they put their cocks in your vagina, your ass, your mouth?”

  Cameron questioned him being so graphic. “Not…not exactly.”

  “What does not exactly mean.”

  “I used to imagine having to submit, men would take my body, make me…serve their cocks.” Her heart was thumping in her chest. Jesus, was she going to get aroused in front of her professor?

  He studied her a moment. “Have you ever had an orgasm without such fantasies?”

  Cameron felt the sweat on her brow. It was like being on the stand, cross examined, about to be convicted in slut court. Her first instinct was to say no, but she reconsidered. “That’s a little complicated, Jeremy.”

  “No, it’s not.” His voice cut right through her. “Look at the situation like a scientist, not as a frightened young women. Are your fantasies of domination and abuse crucial to your sexual processes or not?”

  Her heart thundered. She felt like she was going to explode. “They are,” she heard the words burst out like water through a broken dam. “You’re right, they are.”

  Jeremy barely blinked. His utter passivity twisted her insides, making her need his confirmation all the more. Was he turned on, disgusted, what? She would take anything, as long as he got up out of that fucking chair.

  Better still let him tell her to do something.

  “It’s not a matter of my being right or wrong,” he told her. “You’re the one who has to live with yourself.”

  “So I’m submissive, that’s where this is going, right? In one day I have gone from a normal grad student to some kind of freaky pain slut.”

  Jeremy shrugged. “I would say a great deal of power has been released into your life. Consider it an equation.”

  “Well it sure as hell isn’t all about Victor.”

  “Victor. That’s the dominant from the club?”

  Something occurred to her. “You know him, don’t you? You gave me the ticket to the club. Jeezus, are you a member or something?”

  “Who I know and what I do in my personal life doesn’t matter. I already told you, it’s an equation. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. Be the equal sign, Cameron. Whatever you do, don’t run from it. That’s the worst slavery of all, I promise you.”

  “So you are going to make me keep doing the BDSM assignment, aren’t you?”

  His smile was beautiful and enigmatic. For a moment at least the world made sense. “No, my dear, you are going to make you do it.”

  Chapter Three

  Victor was waiting at the café when Cameron arrived. He was seated at a small table in the back. Her knees went instantly weak. Calling him to invite him to coffee for a formal interview had taken every ounce of courage. Now she would have to go to him, be received on his terms.

  The notion was ridiculous, of course. They were in a public space. He had no ownership here. They were equals and they stay that way. Submit though she might to Craig or to strangers in fantasies, she would never give herself to this man, not in a million years.

  Images of poor suffering Chloe flashed in her mind. He had delivered the pain as if he were a priest, worshipping in the temple of his own religion. For her part, she was the sacrifice.

  Or was she in some twisted way the object of worship, the hidden goddess?

  Funny, she thought, how in the light of day Victor Cabrini did not look like a sadist. Then again, Cameron could hardly expect the man to show up for coffee clad in leather with a whip curled at his belt, could she?

  As it was his lean, smooth body was shown to athletic perfection in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up his tanned forearms and a pair of tailored black slacks.

  She did her best now not to react to the man, the stunningly etched features, waves of silver hair, eyes gray and devastating, threatening to peer into the depths of her very soul.

  It was his timelessness that set her most on edge, as if he could have stepped from an entirely different era, wearing the silk stockings and breeches of the Marquis De Sade himself.

  He ordered espresso for the both of them.

  It wasn’t her favorite, but she was not about to object.

  Cameron caught herself over and over staring at Victor’s hands. Had he punished Chloe with that same hand today, spanking or striking her?

  Or was it some other girl, some other slave

  The questions, damn it, the man is waiting.

  “This won’t take long,” she said pulling the list from her purse with a trembling hand. “I have a very brief questionnaire,” she explained, trying to sound like the research scientist she was supposed to be. “Question number one, how often would you say that you ideate your dominant impulses?”

  The smile lifted to a sharp angle. Amusement danced in his eyes along with something else that made Cameron squirm in her seat, panties suddenly moist.

  “If you mean do I imagine possessing every woman I see, the answer is no, only the challenging ones.”

  Cameron flushed at the implications. Did he see her as a challenge? Was he sizing her up as a potential submissive, putting her through paces in his mind, humiliating and painful? Was he imagining the taste of her tears?

  “Question Two,” she said hoarsely, her throat dry as a desert. “Can you identify the onset of these impulses in the course of your sexual development?”

  Something lit in his eyes, subtle, but more than enough to make her shrink a little in her seat.

  What the hell was he thinking? Was he judging her? Yes, she had had a few dreams as a teenager about strong men, pushing her down, hurting her as they had their way in the middle of the night, shadow men with shadow cocks taking the virginity she had been too scared to share.

  “They aren’t impulses,” he said. “They are the core expression of my being. As for when I learned who I was, that happened the first time I kissed a girl and felt her soften against me. My instinct was to harden, to take and possess.”

  Cameron felt a sharp stab, sweet and hot in her belly.

  She tried not to look at his lips, his hands…his eyes.

  “So you would identify yourself as a...a lifetime practitioner of BDSM?” she said, the word catching in her throat.

  He laughed, mild enough but still with all the power of an untamed lion. “You’re the one who needs so badly to label things. It is enough for me to know that my first lover gave to me and I took. We kissed and my fingers found their way into her hair; I clenched my fist and pulled at the roots until she whimpered and begged. The next thing I knew she was on her knees, I was feeding her my starving teenage erection and she was moaning, licking and sucking. I ejaculated all over her face, neither of us knew exactly what had happened but the roles were clear. She kissed my feet and from then on she was mine.”

  Cameron tried not to picture herself in the girl’s place. How long ago would that have been? Victor looked to be in his forties now; no doubt he was the sort of man who only improved with age.

  “This relationship,” Cameron continued, having forgotten to take a single note in her little book. “How long did it last?”

  “With Sonya, you mean?” He seemed lost in thought. “Three months. It was during the summer time. She had to go back to college in the fall. I was several years younger.”

  Impressive, she thought. A natural dominator if ever there was one.

  “In terms of the elements of BDSM,”
Cameron said, “can you define your relationship with Sonya?”

  He arched a brow. “You are looking for salacious details?”

  Cameron burned with shame. The intimation was clear. Victor thought his story was turning her on. “I’m doing this for science,” she reminded him.

  “Science, yes, of course. Well let me see what I recall.” He narrowed his gaze. “There was one time I made her drive us out on the highway. We pulled over and I made her strip so I could take her bent over the hood. She moaned, her breasts flattened against the still warm metal, her bare feet on the asphalt, legs spread wide for me. It was dark but the truckers saw enough as they passed. It was the first time she surrendered her ass to me. I came rather more quickly than I would have liked. Smoking her cigarettes, I waited in the car until I was hard again. She stayed in place, my come dripping out of her.”

  Cameron squeezed her thighs. She’d asked for this, hadn’t she?

  “And Sonya…tolerated this?”

  “I think you already know the answer to that one.”

  Cameron shifted in her seat, unnerved by the slight lowering in his voice, the slight upturn in its intensity. “She was your submissive, of course. She had already consented to the power exchange.”

  He shrugged microscopically. “You’re the one with the paper to write. As I recall she spent the whole time pleading, looking at me through the windshield weeping. I masturbated, making her suffer the indignity of every honking horn.”

  “If you’re trying to shock me,” she said. “It won’t work.”

  His smile turned cold now, so cold it gripped her heart, blood pumping like liquid ice. For the first time she saw it, what he was really capable of. A part of her wanted to run…as far away as her legs would take her.

  Another part wanted—no, needed—to beg the man’s mercy, knowing full well it would never come. He would take everything, her flesh, her soul…her pride.

  “I have no interest in shocking you, Cameron. Really, I have no interest in you period,” he said, the casually dismissive tone and harsh content sending her into a tailspin.

  Rejected…by a sadist.

  It ought to be a badge of honor.

  But it didn’t feel good, not at all.

  Shaking with inexplicable rage, she shook out her raven curls. More than once she had thought of cutting them off so she would be taken more seriously, but the truth was she liked looking pretty and feminine.

  “You’re a real bastard,” she seethed. “You know that?”

  “So I’ve been told. Now how about dropping this little act of yours and asking me your real questions,” he challenged her.

  “What real questions?” she shot back. “As if you would know the first thing about my thoughts.”

  “You want to know all about my slaves,” he ignored her denial. “I maintain four at present. Chloe you’ve met. I keep her at the club. There is a room in the basement for girls like her. Veronica is married and needs to stay that way so I make exceptions for her. I do not call or summon her. If she has a chance to get away she will call me and I will decide if I have any use for her at the moment. She takes what I give her, pain or pleasure…or utter rejection. I enjoy the sound of her crying and begging on the phone. I forbid her to masturbate which tends to increase her frustration enormously.”

  “Solange is a lingerie model. It’s a dreadful bother being so careful where and how I mark her up. I have to be creative where she is concerned. Overt marks wouldn’t do; too many questions on the catwalk. I make her pay for that inaccessibility to me in ways you really couldn’t imagine. I haven’t seen her much of late. She’s been doing work in Europe. Occasionally I will give her instructions by phone, have her pick up anonymous men and give herself to them in sordid hotel rooms or back alleys. It humiliates her when I make her take money like a whore, though she will beg me to force her nonetheless. And then there is Rachel, a few years younger than you. She lives in my mansion. I give her everything…and nothing.”

  A chill went down Cameron’s spine as he pronounced the phrase, everything…and nothing.

  What did it all mean? How could he open such a Pandora’s Box with just a few simple, enigmatic words?

  Cameron grasped at what she could, trying to make sense. “Rachel, your live in slave, she…she doesn’t mind the others?”

  “I think you know the answer to that one, too.”

  Of course Cameron did. As a submissive Rachel would have nothing to say in the matter. In fact, to the extent she felt spurned and humiliated it was all part of the game.

  “So what exactly ended things with your first lover?” Cameron returned with trepidation to their earlier conversation. Whatever the answer, she had to know. “Was it just the distance involved after she went to college?”

  “No. As a matter of fact I discovered she was seeing someone else,” he said. “She begged my forgiveness and I told her there would be a price. She took my belt on her bare ass a total of twenty times.”

  “And you forgave her?”

  “That was my agreement, yes. I no longer wanted her, though, so I gave her to another.”

  “You gave her?” Cameron could hardly believe they were having such a conversation. Seeing consensual slavery on line was one thing, but in real life it was quite another. “But what of her wishes?”

  “She was under no obligation, but she did love me and so she went. Her new master cared for her not at all. It was quite a rough go.”

  “How could you be so callous?” Cameron could no longer hold back her emotion thinking of the poor, suffering girl whose name she didn’t even know.

  “Love no longer meant anything to me nor did commitment. I determined that from that point on women either fit my demands or they could walk away.”

  Cameron’s heart thudded in her chest. For some reason she was angry.

  “So you don’t believe in any morality.” It was not a question.

  Victor laughed; a wild beast more than a little out of place in this prosaic setting. “Do you want a speech about political correctness, is that it? Shall I respond like Pavlov’s dogs apologizing for who I am? In the world there are the strong and the weak. Which are you?”

  “I hold my own.”

  Another chuckle. “I’m sure you do. What about a man? Are you involved with anyone?”

  Cameron stiffened. “I have a boyfriend whom I love very much, not that it’s any of your concern.”

  So why was she telling him anything?

  She tried to chalk it up to natural conversation. She had nothing to hide. Quite the contrary, Craig was sensible, cute and caring. They were even thinking of marriage one day though for now they were just living together.

  “A boyfriend you love, how prosaic.”

  “Not everyone lives on the edge.”

  “That’s true,” he said with deceptive innocence. “So the sex is satisfactory?”

  Cameron fumed. “As a matter of fact, it is none of your goddamn business.”

  “And yet you can ask all the questions you want about my sex life,” he pointed out.

  “There’s a difference and you know it.”

  “Not from where I sit.”

  “The hell there isn’t.”

  His utter lack of reaction to her rising display of emotion was more than unnerving. It was downright devastating. She was used to males responding. Just a little anger on her part or the shedding of a single tear was almost always enough to get her way. She wasn’t proud of manipulating men but a girl did what she had to in this world, even when it came to ones she loved like Craig.

  Victor, on the other hand, did not seem to care. Was that what got to her so much? Was she scared…or did she want into that world, where his whims ruled the day, trumping feminine will every time.

  “I wonder, Cameron, why did you choose this assignment?”

  The question caught her off guard. “I didn’t.”

  “It was assigned to you?”

  She nodded.

  �
�Interesting,” he said. “Of course that begs the question, why did he choose you for BDSM.”

  “It’s not because I’m some wanna be submissive,” she said sharply. “So don’t even think about it.”

  Cameron knew at once she had made a mistake. Everything disappeared from his face, including the cold smile.

  “I have other business,” he said, rising to his feet and putting money on the table as though she no longer existed.

  Stunned and bewildered she heard his footsteps fading away. Just like that he was out the front door.

  Now what?

  She didn’t just mean for the next few minutes or days, either. It was her whole life opening before her, like some dark, hot cavern at the bottom of which lay both her worst fears and deepest dreams.

  Craig, she had to find Craig.

  She would tell him everything and get a fresh start.

  Assuming it wasn’t already too late.

  Chapter Four

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” Craig called out as Cameron stormed from the kitchen back to the bedroom. “You’re driving me crazy.”

  “I’m sorry I’m such a burden,” she shouted, spraying the top of the dresser in anticipation of giving it the polishing of its life. “Anyway, it’s not like it makes any difference, eighty percent of couples experience at least moderate communication breakdown by the third year of the relationship according to Gaspers and Green.”

  Cleaning was what she did when she was upset. She needed the sense of rootedness in some humble task, something to offset the discomfort of fighting.

  It hadn’t started as a fight, of course. It was supposed to have been an opportunity for growth as a couple in which she, for her part would explain her dilemma, the deep seated desires unleashed by her exposure to Victor. This in turn would help her de-brief on their love making last night and her strange behavior this morning.

  Instead she had circled around the point, hoping for a little bit of support on his part, or maybe some flat out mind reading. Naturally the result was a disaster.

  “Cameron, would you knock it off with the maid routine?” he told her. “We need to finish this discussion.”