A Winter Symphony: A Christmas Novella Read online

  At least the dungeons were full. All four of his staff dominatrixes were hard at work, putting the fear of Goddess into their wealthy male clients. It was good, he reminded himself, that these people—his people—had a safe place to play. The equipment was of high quality. The pro dommes and subs were world-class. And when the party got going, it was like Hieronymus Bosch’s wettest dream.

  There had been a time when wild horses couldn’t drag him out of the club. Now it was hardly ten at night, and already he was checking his watch, longing to be home with Juliette. They could read each other books about New Orleans, discuss renovations, paint colors, nannies... He tried to tell himself The Big Easy wasn’t all jazz and booze, beignets and Mardi Gras. There was something called “termite season,” apparently. And God, the lizards—they were everywhere. Devastating poverty in many of the wards, not to mention the rampant post-Katrina gentrification. And, of course, the summer humidity you could cut with a chainsaw. He reminded himself of all these downsides, but it didn’t work. He still wanted to be there more than he wanted to be in this city.

  The future tantalized him. The past dogged him. When he wasn’t imagining life in New Orleans with Juliette and their baby, he was back in the past again, sixteen years old, following Søren one warm September night out to a clearing in the Maine woods, waiting to hear those three words again—

  “There’s my King,” came a voice from behind him.

  Wrong three words.

  Mistress Nora put her hands on his hips from behind and rose up to kiss his cheek. He leaned into the kiss. She sidled up next to him at the railing. She was wearing a red leather bustier and red boots. A short flogger with scarlet tails hung from a cord around her wrist. “Watching the show?”

  “Not much of one tonight. It’s Monday,” he said with a shrug.

  She swept her thick black hair off her shoulders and pulled it up into a loose bun, then fanned herself. Must have just finished up with a client. Her hair was damp with sweat, and her heavy black eye make-up was becomingly smudged. Her dark eyes glowed bright by the light of the tall tallow candles that illuminated the VIP lounge. For a moment, he could imagine she was a Valkyrie, fierce, deadly, and wild.

  “How was your session?” he asked. He wanted desperately to tell her what he and Juliette were planning, but Søren had asked him to wait for a few months so she could get her bearings. They’d been through a lot, especially her.

  “It was all right. I think I broke his finger. Oops.”

  Oops? Not merely sadistic, but callous, too. Kingsley’s blood stirred just standing next to her, and he wondered if he needed a beating tonight more than he needed his dignity. No, he told himself, not tonight. Tonight he would go home as soon as he could, get out of his clothes—obscenely snug black trousers, black shirt with the collar open, and black coat with tails—and into bed with Juliette.

  “Is that bad?” he asked.

  “Nah. He tips an extra grand if I break something.”

  “You don’t sound excited.”

  She glanced at him out the corner of her eye. “Can I tell you a secret without you firing me?”

  “You don’t work for me anymore, remember?”

  Painfully, this was true. Nora chose her own clients now. She kept all her money. She paid rent on her dungeon, but she didn’t answer to him anymore. This arrangement had hurt his wallet but improved their relationship.

  “Okay, fine,” she said. “Can I tell you a secret without you kicking me out of my dungeon?”

  “Of course.”

  “I broke his finger because I was bored, and I was trying to do something to get my head back in the game.”

  “I take it this didn’t work.”

  “Worked for him.” She rolled her eyes. “He came so hard I have to get the ceilings mopped tomorrow. Still, the whole time I was thinking about how I wanted to be anywhere in the world but in that room.”

  “You never think that when I’m in your dungeon, do you?”

  She put her arm around his waist, patted his ass, and kissed his cheek. His tight trousers were getting even tighter. This woman was so vicious that breaking a man’s finger bored her.

  “Never,” she said with a wicked gleam in her vicious eyes. “When I’m with you—dungeon or no dungeon—all I can think about is how much fun I have beating the shit out of you.”

  “Merci.”

  He kissed her lips lightly, and they turned their gazes back to the pit. A few more people had trickled in. Play was picking up. Someone was getting their boots blacked. Someone else was getting pilloried and sodomized in tandem.

  “I was torturing a billionaire, and I was bored,” she said.

  “And I’m watching a former child star get sodomized by a drag queen named Scarlet O’Whora, and I’m bored, too. What’s wrong with us?”

  “It’s that room,” she said, sober again, somber. He knew she wasn’t talking about her dungeon this time. She wrapped her arms around herself as if suddenly cold. “Something happened in that room to us, and we’re all different now. You feel it, don’t you?”

  “I feel it.”

  “Looking back, it feels like I spent my entire adult life playing with people.”

  “You did. That was your job.”

  “True.” She sighed. “For years it was like the three of us were playing one big game with each other. Me and him versus you. You and him versus me. Me and you versus him. I don’t know. It’s like…after everything that happened, the game’s over.”

  “Because we both won?” Kingsley asked.

  She met his eyes. “Because maybe it was never a game to start with.” She closed her eyes. “So many people got hurt. We hurt so many people. Real pain is a lot scarier than what they pay me for.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”

  “It’s hard to be here sometimes,” she said. “I keep trying to go back to the way things were, but I don’t know… I’m starting to think I’m not supposed to go back. I’m supposed to go forward.”

  Had she told Søren that? Is that why he didn’t want Kingsley to tell her they were moving, because she was feeling just as restless? If Kingsley and Juliette left, if they broke the bond that held them all together, what would stop Nora from leaving, too? Her black eyes glowed with an inner fire. No wonder Søren feared getting burned again.

  Intrigued but unwilling to show his hand, Kingsley said simply, “Where do you think you are supposed to go?”

  “I want to travel. Get out of here and not look back for a while. In fact, I was thinking…” She glanced at him out the corner of her eye. “You told me a long time ago about this place you went to in France after you got shot the first time. Somewhere in wine country or something. Your parents took you there when you were a kid?”

  Kingsley furrowed his brow. “I told you about that? I don’t remember.”

  She smiled. “You were drunk at the time. I think I was, too. You said you went somewhere to recuperate? Maybe that’s what I need. A little time in wine country.”

  What she needed was a male submissive. A real one. Not her old houseboy Wesley or whatever his stupid name was, but a real submissive who would worship her for her power, not try to take it away from her. Someone to serve her, guard her, someone she could train and spoil and be spoiled by. Not that he would tell her that and risk being bludgeoned to death by Søren. Bludgeoning was one of his few hard limits.

  He waved his hand to dismiss the idea. “You’ll be bored,” he said. “Just a little village called Mozet and a bit of beach. My father had friends there, I think. It’s been so long since I’ve been.”

  “Didn’t you have a girlfriend there?”

  “No, I had a wife there. Only she was someone else’s wife.”

  Nora laughed her low throaty laugh, and he had to remind himself—again—that he was going to go home as soon as possible. Any minute now.

  “Mozet,” she said as if committing the name to memory. “I’ll look it up. Maybe it’s just what the do
ctor ordered.”

  “Juliette had a good time in New Orleans, you know. You could take a few weeks there. We didn’t want to come back.”

  “So I heard. Søren asked me if I’d seen you since you got back from your trip. You aren’t hiding from him, are you?”

  Kingsley exhaled heavily. “Maybe. I think I’ve gotten on his bad side again.”

  “What did you do?” Her tone was teasing.

  “I told him something he didn’t want to hear.”

  “That’ll do it. But I don’t think he’s mad at you at all.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “He’s been playing Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’ over and over again like some kind of Phantom of the Rectory. It’s very adorable, not that I told him that. I think he’s pining for you. I know he’s not pining for me. He can’t get rid of me.”

  Kingsley tried not to smile, though it was hard. Kingsley thought he was the one who did all the pining in their relationship.

  “Perhaps he’s just in the mood to play Vivaldi,” he said.

  Kingsley had written a report on Vivaldi back at their old school. Vivaldi, the “Red Priest” who taught music to orphan girls, turning many of them into violin virtuosos.

  “He also just bought you another Christmas present,” Nora said. “It’s sitting on his piano with your name on it.”

  “He did? What is it?”

  “No clue. He’s being secretive about it. Then again, I’m being secretive, too.” She brought the tips of her fingers together and wiggled them rapidly, like a mad scientist fiendishly delighted by the potion she was brewing.

  He leaned close to her. “What secret are you keeping?” he whispered.

  “If I tell you,” she said, “it won’t be a secret.”

  A soft buzzing interrupted them, a phone vibrating. Nora took her phone out of her bustier where she’d nestled it between her ample breasts. Lucky phone.

  “I better go,” she said. “I’m spanking the mayor’s nephew in ten. This one I’m actually looking forward to. He’s cute as a button when you put him in stockings, garters, and a Laura Ashley dress.”

  She kissed Kingsley on the cheek, but before she could pull away, he took her by the wrist. “Before you go, I was thinking…”

  She waited, eyes wide, and he saw the real woman underneath the outrageous make-up—the blood-red lips and Cleopatra eyes. Nora. His friend. One of the very few people he trusted with his life.

  “When the baby comes, I was going to take some time off to help Juliette,” he said. “But someone has to watch over the clubs, you know. I was wondering—”

  “Not me.”

  That surprised him. He thought she’d jump at the chance to rule his empire. “Not you?”

  “I… This is going to sound embarrassing and entirely out of character, so please just forget I’ve said it after I’ve said it. Okay?”

  “Okay…”

  “Most nights, all I want is to be with Søren,” she said. “Not even for sex or kink. Just with him. It’s a good thing I’ve scared him off asking me to marry him. If he asked me to elope to San Pedro tomorrow, I might do it.”

  She was serious.

  “And if you tell him that,” she added, “I will kill you.”

  She was serious about that, too.

  “Is it that bad?” he asked.

  “Or good? I don’t know. I just know I’ve turned down twenty clients this past month. I’m down to ten sessions a week. My therapist says that’s normal, that it takes six months at least to get your bearings back after a life-altering incident. Unfortunately, the bills don’t wait for you to get your shit together.”

  Søren had said Nora was struggling, that she was “fragile.” And perhaps she was. But she wasn’t fragile like a wine glass, Kingsley saw, but fragile like an egg. There was something inside her about to break out. No wonder Søren was scared. Was he scared for her or of her?

  “You know I will help you if you need it,” Kingsley said.

  “If it comes to begging you for money, I’ll start stealing cars again.” Her phone buzzed. “I better run. Places to go. People to beat.”

  Her old joke, except this time she didn’t smile when she said it. She kissed him one more time and turned to walk away.

  Then she stopped and spun on her heel, turning like a music box ballerina. It was good to see that even if she’d lost her bloodlust, she hadn’t lost her grace.

  “I know who could run the place while you’re on paternity leave.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It took a second for Kingsley to recognize the young man who answered the door. Shaggy dark hair, wide silver-blue eyes that somehow managed to look both innocent and intelligent at the same time. He wore baggy khakis on his thin frame and a navy-blue t-shirt with yorke written across the front. Yorke College.

  “Michael,” Kingsley said. “You cut your hair.”

  “Ah, yeah,” he said and ran a hand over his head as if still getting used to his shorter hair. “For Christmas. I was trying to look older since we were visiting Griff’s family. Did it work?”

  “You do look older. But why aren’t you at school?” It was a Tuesday evening, and not a holiday as far as Kingsley knew.

  “The furnace in my dorm died. The temperature dropped to forty indoors, so they sent us all home. Or, not home, you know, but—”

  “Here.”

  Michael blushed becomingly. He really was a pretty boy. No wonder Griffin had fallen so hard for him so fast.

  “If that’s our Mexican,” Griffin’s voice carried all the way from down the hall, “the money’s on the side table.”

  “I’m French, not Mexican,” Kingsley called back before Michael could reply.

  Griffin suddenly stuck his head into the short hallway of their apartment. “King, holy fuck.”

  Griffin ran to the door and slid the last few yards on his socks, coming to a stop only by grabbing the door frame. Kingsley took a self-preserving step back just in case.

  “King.”

  “Griffin.”

  “I swear to God, we’re getting Mexican food for dinner. We weren’t planning a racist threesome.”

  “I assumed.”

  “God, I haven’t seen you in forever, man. Get in here. Hug me ’til it hurts.”

  Kingsley sighed. Griffin was…Griffin. As usual. The hug was brief but painful, just the way Griffin liked it.

  Before Kingsley knew it, he was sitting in a black club chair with a cup of a very good coffee in his hand. Griffin took a seat on the sofa, with Michael at his feet, shoulders between his knees. Outside, fresh snow was falling, and the sky had turned a strange smoky gray. The apartment was warm but not quite Kingsley’s style. Exposed brick walls. Sleek, symmetrical black leather furniture. Funky cow-print rugs. A playful home, but definitely on the young side. Or maybe Kingsley was just getting to be on the old side.

  Griffin grilled him about his “babymoon” while Michael listened quietly and politely, only occasionally offering his own questions or comments. Every time Michael did speak up, Griffin would gently squeeze his shoulder or tug his hair as if to reward him for talking. He was a shy kid, Kingsley knew, and Griffin seemed to be helping him out of his shell. He did have a way of making people comfortable, making them feel safe to be themselves. This would stand him in good stead if he took the job Kingsley came to offer.

  “Since your dinner is on the way, I’ll get to the point,” Kingsley said as he set his empty mug on the rustic wood coffee table. Wood. Splinters. Sharp square corners. Not child-safe at all.

  “Or just stay for dinner,” Griffin offered. “We always order extra. Trying to fatten Mick up so we can share clothes.”

  “It’s not working,” Michael said. “So much for the freshman fifteen.”

  “I’ll give you fifteen lashes later tonight,” Griffin said. “That can be your freshman fifteen.”

  “You know we have a guest, right?” Michael pointed to Kingsley. “Like…right there. And he can hear you.�
��

  “King,” Griffin said, “I’m going to give Mick fifteen lashes later tonight.”

  “As you should. He clearly hasn’t learned his place yet.” Kingsley winked at Michael.

  “I’m just kidding. Mick knows he’s perfect.” Griffin leaned over and gave Michael a quick rough hug and a kiss. They were so easy together, so comfortable. Would Kingsley ever be that comfortable, that playful with Søren? He’d known and loved the man since he was sixteen years old, and he still couldn’t imagine coming up behind Søren and giving him a hug. He’d probably end up in the hospital after taking an elbow to the liver.

  “All right, so I’m curious now,” Griffin said. “What’s up?”

  “First, I have to ask you to keep this a secret. For now. Just for now.”

  “From who? Everyone? Like, even Nora?”

  “Yes.”

  “Should I go?” Michael looked up at Griffin. “I can go.”

  “Whatever he tells me, I’ll tell you anyway,” Griffin said. “King knows that.”

  “Yes, I know that.” Ah, to be that young and naïve again.

  Griffin and Michael listened intently as Kingsley explained the situation to them—Juliette’s pregnancy, feeling unsafe in the city after what they’d all gone through, the enemies he’d made, and the decision he’d come to…and, of course, the need for someone to watch over The 8th Circle and its denizens.

  “Mistress Nora herself suggested you,” Kingsley said. “And I’m inclined to agree with her opinion.”

  Griffin looked incredulous. “Me? Seriously? Run The 8th Circle?”

  “You. Seriously.”

  “That’s a…that’s huge, King. Are you really leaving? I can’t imagine New York without you, or I guess…you without New York.”

  “I can imagine it very easily. And maybe when you’re my age, you can imagine it, too.”

  “And this is like…a done deal?”

  “We found a house,” Kingsley said. “It’s old, however, and in a city that’s hard on houses. We’re looking at a massive renovation that would take about a year. As I told Søren, we’ll have one last Christmas here and then move next January, February at the latest. That’s not much time to train a replacement to run an empire.”