ChapterNine
Tonight was the night!
It was Valentine’s Day, and Beth found herself all nerves and anticipation.
Yesterday’s events had shaken her a little. First, having her meet and greet canceled. Then the disturbing situation she’d witnessed at the club.
“Gah! What’s wrong with me?” she murmured out loud, wishing, not for the first time, she had someone to bounce her concerns off.
It wasn’t like she was unfamiliar, or even averse, to scening with complete strangers. She’d done so many times in the past.
“But never involving sex,” she muttered to herself. She’d always drawn the line there. Not just because of her job and the implications there, but because despite her love of kink, she still felt that sex was a personal thing. There were plenty of people who thought kink and sex went hand in hand, and that was fine, their choice; she didn’t judge. But there were just as many who didn’t feel that way, and Beth was amongst the latter. Sharing your body with another person was something to be treasured and not entered into lightly. She wasn’t entering into this lightly. She’d considered it a great deal and to her the experience was special, even if it was a pre-arranged, one-off scenario.
She sighed and practiced breathing in an effort to relax. At least she’d gotten the opportunity to visit Iniquity the previous evening and had Jed to show her around. She appreciated that and had enjoyed his company. More than enjoyed it. Just thinking about the blond, blue eyed waiter had her pulse speeding up again.
Jed had acted like the perfect gentleman. She’d actually been a little disappointed about that. She certainly wouldn’t have turned down a scene with him. He’d even gone to the trouble of putting her mind at rest over the scene that had unsettled her so badly, despite his assertion that it was none of her business.
And he was right; it wasn’t.
It had just hit a little too close to home, being a poly scene with three Doms, like the one she was preparing herself for right now.
In truth, she couldn’t fault the dungeon monitors. As invisible as they were, those guys had been right on it, and the quick and efficient way they handled it put her at ease.
Jed had told her later that the girl was fine, and the guys had been given a warning for not keeping their eye on the ball. Beth wasn’t sure what she expected, but Jed had gone on to explain that unless there was a clear-cut violation of the regulations, backed up by a valid complaint, most visitors got the benefit of the doubt the first time any intervention happened during a scene. But any future scenes would be scrutinized far more closely, and any further transgression would see them banned from the club, not just for this trip, but on a permanent basis. Their names got flagged so they wouldn’t be able to book a return trip to the island. And if the incidents were deemed serious enough, their names were passed on to other clubs Iniquity had close contacts with.
Then this morning she’d realized, when her head wasn’t quite so buzzed with lust, that she hadn’t done her club orientation. The rules were very clear. No one got to scene until they’d completed it and gone through all the rules and regulations, familiarized themselves with club protocol, uploaded their limit list, and had a tour of the facilities and equipment in the cold light of day, when sexual appetites weren’t running high and blurring the lines on all the rules. It was a sound, sensible procedure and one Beth could appreciate after the time she’d spent with Jed last night, and how easily lust and longing had dulled her senses, even if she had been sobered by that ill-fated scene.
Still, she’d skipped off right after breakfast to get orientation out of the way and wondered how different her evening might have been if she’d completed it when she first got here instead of waiting. But there was no point crying over spilled milk. If she was lucky, Jed would be available for an encore before she left to go home.
In the meantime, she had her own hand-picked harem to look forward to tonight and while she hadn’t received any more information about her missing counterparts from yesterday, neither had she had another message to say there were any problems with this evening’s festivities.
That didn’t mean she wouldn’t feel more comfortable if she’d had the chance to meet these guys first and get to know them a little bit before the big event, and she was disappointed that hadn’t happened. It just put her on edge and added to her anxiousness. It would have been good for them all to get a measure of each other. Chemistry was still a factor, as far as Beth was concerned, though she suspected it might be somewhat different for men. But she had faith that whoever had organized the hook-up would have done their homework.
She dressed carefully in the outfit she’d splurged on especially for the occasion. The black and red corset enhanced her ample, hourglass figure. It made her rather generous boobs look amazing, even if she did say so herself. She’d even practiced getting it on and off gracefully, so she didn’t look like a dork doing it. She teamed it with black thigh high stockings, which could either stay on or come off a lot more sexily than a pair of tights, a skirt in a well-fitting fire-engine red that flirted with the garter tops of her stockings, and a pair of red skyscraper heels which defined her calves and gave her added height and which also helped slim her overall image.
Sure, she was confident enough with her plump and curvy figure, but what girl didn’t want to look her best?
She hated the narrow-minded ideals that said you should wear certain types of clothes, that you should stick to ‘slimming’ colors. That big women like herself should avoid tight clothing and bright colors. Like they didn’t deserve to be seen or something. Thank God the fashion industry was finally catching up and it was possible to buy amazing clothes in plus sizes these days. For years it had perplexed her how clothing labels didn’t cater to larger ladies like herself. Their business sense made no sense for the industry, because there were a damn sight more plus size women, these days, than there were size zero’s.
Would she like to lose weight? Sure, she would. But not to fit in with some kind of fake society ideal; more because she was aware of her health.
One thing was for sure though. She was never going to diet for anyone except herself. And when it came to men, well, if they didn’t like her the way she was, then they didn’t deserve her any other way.
She’d rather be single than tolerate someone who wanted to change her, or thought she was less just because there was more of her to go around.
She even felt sorry for the skinny girls who married such superficial jerks, because what happened if they retained some of their baby weight or got sick and gained a few pounds? Would they always have to worry that suddenly their husbands were going to trade them in for a slimmer model? That was so demeaning.
At least when - if - she married, she’d know her husband loved her for who she was and not because she looked a certain way.
She found the mindset liberating. In truth, Beth had spent enough years obsessing about her size, persuaded into thinking she was somehow defective by the heavy weight - ha, no pun intended - of social pressure and advertising. That pressure had been intolerable when she was younger. She had made herself ill, virtually starving herself, only to give up and binge eat before malignant fingers of guilt and low self-esteem had her convinced she was a loser and forced her to do it all over again.
It had taken a long time for her to love herself, and the difficult road she’d traveled to find it had required knowledge and maturity as well as therapy. But now she had done it there was no going back to that poisonous and destructive mindset.
If anyone out there didn’t like her for who she was, then they were the ones who weren’t worthy, not her, and she was better off without that kind of poisonous influence in her life.