Insatiable (Steel Brothers Saga #12) - Helen Hardt Page 0,46
want my mother and sister to know, for God’s sake.”
“Your mother is out of it. She won’t have a clue. As for your sister—”
“Don’t even. I don’t want to hear about any of my sister’s kinks.”
I chuckled. “I wasn’t going to give you anything like that. Trust me.”
“God. You mean there are kinks?”
I shook my head. “Let’s not get into Marj’s kinks or yours, okay? I’m only interested in Booker’s, and certainly not from a sexual standpoint. Just from the standpoint of learning more about him.”
Joe stayed quiet for a minute.
He’d tell me, though. I needed to know, so I could help him. He knew that.
“He’s a switch,” Joe finally said.
“Say what?”
“A top-bottom switch. Sometimes he likes to dominate, other times he likes to submit.”
“O…kay.”
“You don’t know the jargon,” Joe said. “I get it. But here’s the thing. Most men are Dominants, and most women are submissives, at least at this club. We had a few female Dommes and a few male subs, but it’s usually the other way around at a place like this. Switches, though, are even less common than male subs and female Dommes.”
“So he’s got an uncommon kink.”
“These aren’t really kinks. Maybe they are. You’ve got to understand. When you like this stuff, it seems normal.”
“I’ve got nothing against any kind of alternative lifestyle—”
“What I’m saying is that it doesn’t seem alternative to us. I’ll be honest with you. It’s not a whole life thing for me. I like to be dominant in the bedroom.”
That was hardly a surprise. I’d known this guy my whole life. If there was ever a born Dominant, it was Jonah Steel.
“But I don’t take it into real life. I don’t even always do it in the bedroom. Most of the people at the club were like me. It was just a place where we could play out scenes with willing partners.”
“You had partners?”
“Duh, Bryce. You think you can dominate thin air?”
“No. I mean, you were with that one woman. Karen, was it?”
“Kerry. Kerry Ross. Yeah, she was my sub for a while, but she was never my slave outside the club, though she wanted to be.”
“Slave?”
“That’s a sub who’s submissive in all aspects of life, not just the bedroom. Not my thing. I never wanted a slave. I wanted an equal.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”
“It’s all safe with me. You have to know that.”
“Right. It’s still weird. This part of me has always been very private.”
“If it helps, you don’t need to tell me about you at all. Just about Booker.”
“You need to know about the other stuff to understand. Booker was a male switch, the only one at the club.”
“And that’s unusual?”
“Switches are unusual, yeah. Usually you’re one or the other, dominant or submissive. But a switch is a different kind of personality.”
“Doesn’t seem that weird,” I said. “Okay, it’s all a little weird to me, but why wouldn’t you want to experience both sides of the coin?”
“He wasn’t just a switch. He was a bisexual switch. He played with both men and women, and he topped and bottomed for both.”
“Topped?”
“Top means taking the dominant role. Bottom is submissive.”
“Okay, not my cup of tea, or yours apparently. But surely being a bisexual switch isn’t altogether unusual.”
“I suppose it isn’t, but he was the only one at our club.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s it. I’m not a voyeur, so I never watched him in action.”
“You mean others…”
“Yeah, every club has a certain number of voyeurs and exhibitionists. Those who go to watch and be watched. I didn’t fall into either category. No one watched me. I had a private suite.”
Of course a Steel would have a private suite at an underground leather club. This was so much TMI.
“That’s a shame.”
“A shame I had a private suite?”
“No, not that. A shame you never watched Booker. You might have some insight if you had.”
“Dude, you just gave me a visual I didn’t want.”
I couldn’t help a laugh. “Sorry.”
That got a chuckle out of him.
“Can you ask Melanie? About whether a switch has any psychological issues?”
“I already have. She says like any other kink, it can be perfectly normal behavior. It’s not the preference that’s ever the issue. It’s the person.”
“And doing it with both men and women?”
“Also normal.”
“Maybe his sexual behavior is normal, but Booker is anything but.”
“Knowing what I know now,” Joe said, “I agree with you.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Marjorie
Bertram Valente was dead.
I’d scoured the obits and found several Bertram Valentes, but only one in Colorado.