With the food devoured, the men retired to the sitting room with their wine glasses. I had an image of a Victorian parlour filled with cigar smoke, the tinkle of port glasses, and drawling speeches. In the kitchen, with the help of my troop of girlfriends, we packed the dishwasher, wiped down the dinner mats, and stashed the soiled napkins in the washing machine.
Apart from the men, we had the first opportunity to chinwag and we did as women do—over, above, across, and through each other’s dialogue. Standing around the kitchen, wine glasses in hand we re-hashed scenes we had done recently—with the exception of Monique, who couldn’t because of the club’s confidentiality agreement. We discussed rules—ones we liked and the ones we struggled not to break. What we liked being spanked with and why and favourite bondage positions. The big ugly head of punishments peered over the parapet, and we beat it back with a, not tonight!
Lost in a nattering huddle, we failed to notice time had passed by or the appearance of Jason, who leaned on the kitchen doorway with an empty wine bottle in his hand. The moment we spotted him, it was like hitting mute on the remote control button for a TV. Our mouths stoppered mid-sentence, and our collective eyes descended on the empty wine bottle, which he waved at us. We had forgotten to service the men. Not just partners, husbands, or sometime companions: our masters and Dominants. Men who didn’t like to be neglected or thought of as nuisances. They were meant to be the focus of our attention, our thoughts, and our actions.
“Same again, Sir?” I chirped, taking the empty bottle.
“A rioja this time.” He walloped my backside as I attempted to swing it out of his reach, failing miserably.
We scuttled into the sitting room, giggling at our foolishness, and parked our bottoms by our waiting Doms with an apologetic murmur of obsequiousness.
The evening sun had faded over the horizon, the long summer day ending, and I switched on the lamps. I felt a pang of disappointment it wasn’t winter because a real fire lit in the fireplace would have made the room cosy and warm. I anticipated it wouldn’t be long before we were required to be naked. After dinner was the time for entertainment and games. Impromptu scenes probably involving some kind of humiliation.
Nervously, I fidgeted on my knees at Jason’s feet and waited. Waiting was part of the game, too.
Chapter 19. After Dinner Play
“Now that the ladies have seen fit to keep us company, perhaps they should entertain us, too,” suggested Garratt, and the others nodded in agreement.
Here goes—what? I eyed my deck of playing cards on the mantelpiece. Jason followed my gaze, cocking his head to one side and smiling. “How about Scabby Queen? I’m sure suitable penalties can be given.”
I picked up the cards.
“What is Scabby Queen?” asked Monique.
“Like Old Maid,” I said, and she nodded. “I’ll take the Queen of Clubs out of the deck. You match off numbered pairs from your hand, red with red, black with black then select a card from the person to your left and discard a pair if they match. The person left with the Scabby Queen, which is the Queen of Spades, has to be punished.”
“Punished?” said Monique, her eyes darting back and forth between me and Damien.
“At school, losing meant raps over the knuckles with cards.” I glanced at Jason. He thrummed his fingers on the armrest, and, in slow-motion style, a smile materialised on his face. I ventured he had other ideas for penalties.
Garratt chipped in with his own twist to the game. “I’m sure they’re overdressed, aren’t you? A scabby queen should look a little beneath her contemporaries.”
We placed our discarded clothes by a wall in neatly separated piles. What would be terrifying in the context of the vanilla world came easily amongst my own kind. Judith’s skin was adorned with elaborate tattoos, which she’d had done for Garratt. During our stripping, Jason had
left the room and, when he returned, he had a basket of wooden clothes pegs, which he place on the coffee table, and a round rubber paddle.
I dealt the cards out as we knelt around the central, low-level coffee table, eyeing the pegs. I pointed at them and coughed, raising an eyebrow at my husband.
Jason settled in his seat and crossed his legs. He’d dispensed with his jacket and bow tie, as had the other men. With the top button of his shirt undone, he exuded a delicious sexiness that took the edge off my nerves. He explained his idea with a wry smile. “Each pair you discard requires a clothes peg on your breasts. You can do it yourself or help each other out. We don’t mind, do we, gentlemen?”
I tried hard not to roll my eyes up to the ceiling. Discarding the existing pairs in our hands, I ended up with two pegs on one breast—and they pinched terribly when self-inflicted. Judith had one pair, Monique, no pairs, Zoe, three, and Eva, two. I watched them squeeze the pegs on with grimaces.
The game began in earnest, and each matching pair we discarded was rewarded by another peg attachment. We peeked over our cards at each other, wondering who had the rogue unmatched card. With straight faces on display, whoever had the Scabby Queen wasn’t letting on.
By the time we were down to our last few cards, we’d collected more pegs and a heap of matching pairs before us. Zoe was the first to go out, tossing her last pair into the discard pile. She waved her hands in delight until Jason handed the paddle to Sebastian; then her eyes widened.
“The first out gets five,” said Jason. “The second, ten, until we find out the overall loser.”
A chorus of gasps went up from us girls. “So even if you win you get, what, twenty smacks?” I glowered.
“Who said there had to be a winner?” He laughed, and the other Doms joined in.
“Whoever has the Scabby Queen,” I leant over the table whispering to my playmates, “lose it under the table.”
“I heard that, Gemma,” called out Jason. “Cheats will be dealt with severely.”
I wriggled on my bottom—some threats were too enticing, but Judith shook her head. “Best be good,” she said in my ear.