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This was the third establishment Shaw visited. The first one abused her ability to handle torture, she left before the first session even finished. Granted, she was new to the whole thing and made a bad call. The second one was much better. It was where she met her dom, Master Corti a.k.a Tony DeLuca. He understood her, although he got a little squeamish when one time she showed up right after being beaten out in a mission—she never repeated the same mistake again. Too bad, he was retiring. He earned a raise on his daily job as DA assistant (she might or might not do some digging) and it required him to relocate to Seattle.
Corti had recommended the third place to her before he left. That was three months ago. She had gone without any session in the dungeon and consequently, sex, for as long. She was reluctant at first, believing she would not find anyone who could understand her quirk again, but eventually submitted when Cole told her to get laid or do something to blow the steam off rather than snapping at him every time they were out on a mission, which was why she was looming outside the third one at the moment.
“Are you going to come in?”
Shaw would have shot the man between the eyes if she had her gun with her. She stared at him from her spot, hidden under a tree on the lawn. It was long and hard, enough to make him shifted nervously on the brownstone’s doorway. It was one of the things that bothered her about the supposed-to-be BDSM establishment; it was a freaking two-story house located in the suburban. Then just now she found out an Asian man working on it—not that his race put her off in the slightest—it was just too unusual.
“If you’re not going to come in or leave, I will be forced to call police. It’s the third time this week.” Shaw’s glare hardened as she stepped to the light, prompting him to retreat but not without warning her first, “We are a legal venue and we have cameras monitoring the place.”
That was what Shaw was waiting for, some sort of validation that it was indeed not a normal home. She raised her arms in the classic surrender pose, making herself seemed less intimidating. The man stared at her suspiciously for an extra second, before he stepped back to make way for her. She could feel weariness seeping out from him as she passed him on the doorway. There was no way such wimpy young guy working as one of the doms, Shaw noted, and pleased to find him hurriedly took a seat behind the reception table. ‘Daizo’, the name plate on the desk displayed.
“Master Corti from Paddles sent me here,” Shaw declared before Daizo could open his mouth to, she assumed, explain the whole BDSM business to her. “I’d like to sign in.”
Daizo went on typing the information. It was not long before he pulled out the correct file from his computer. “We’ve been waiting for you, Miss Shaw.” He finally offered an awkward grin, feeling more at ease now that he was sure the woman was not there to kill anyone—she did look like she could if she wanted to. “Would you like to change some of your preferences?”
“No.”
Daizo brandished a tablet in front of her, to which she quirked a brow at. “We have quite vast selection of doms and dommes you can choose from.”
Shaw pushed the gadget back. “Just assign me with your best.”
The first session took place two days later. Shaw had signed for one session only; the establishment had a policy of letting their clients running one test before authorizing a longer contract. Daizo had led then left her in the dungeon, where she was ordered to take off her clothes and waited on her knees. She did both without problem, not even when she felt the weight of stares coming from the one-sided mirror in front of her. Modesty was not a problem for her. She used to work in the U.S Marine Corps; the job did not afford her to be shy. She was proud of her body, too.
Shaw stared back boldly, even though it was her own reflection she was glaring at. After what felt like forever, the intensity lessened. She knew whoever she was having a staring battle with, had left the other side of the mirror. The door behind her opened and someone walked in, supporting her theory. She was surprised when the person’s full appearance reflected by the mirror. To be honest, she had expected a man with tall stature and bulging muscles, someone people thought would be able to submit down an ex-marine like her. However, it was a woman this time. Lanky, too. She was all tight black leather, pale skin, soft curves, silky hair and bright smile. Shaw’s mouth went dry.
“Safeword?”
Her voice was melodious, but tinged with something Shaw did not like—mischief.
“Indigo.”
The woman nodded. “On all four.”
Shaw did as she was ordered to. Following command was not hard for her to do, she was a good soldier. Being on all four, she did not surprised at all when the woman took a seat on her back. Even with her full weight being placed down, it did not affect Shaw’s steadiness at all.
The woman smirked, crossing her legs. “A tough one, aren’t you?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Fingers ghosted on Shaw’s shoulder blade. “Don’t call me ‘ma’am’. It makes me feel old.” She tapped on the healing scar she found there with utter interest. “Call me ‘Root’. Just ‘Root’, without the ‘Lady’, ‘Mistress’, ‘Madame’... You’re Sam, right?”
That was new, Shaw noted, but agreed to it nonetheless.
“Corti talked about you. I mean, he didn’t tell me about what you guys do or anything, but he liked you.”
Root stood up suddenly, relieving Shaw from the extra weight but she did not change her position. Her voice came from the other side of the room where other kind of noises also sourced at. Shaw guessed the lanky woman was rummaging through the cabinets housing the toys. It sent a thrill of excitement throughout her body. She would like to see what this woman had on her sleeves and if she was worth the money she had spent on.
“I read your file.”
Shaw was surprised that Root had managed to sneak up on her, but she was zapped before she could react. She fell, sprawled on the wooden floor. Her body convulsed and twitched ever so slightly. Corti had never attempted such thing. Being zapped hurt like hell. Every muscle on her body was screaming from the sudden lost of blood sugar, courtesy to the stun gun, and she liked it.
“And I’m kind of a big fan.” Root grabbed her arm to flip her over then straddle her hips. “So I really don’t want to disappoint you.”
Shaw liked it even more when Root brandished a match and a glass filled with candle. She stared on with disinterest as Root lit the candle then dripped several drops to her inner forearm, humming in approval. Wax play, Corti was not fond of it. Shaw tried doing it to herself once and found the hot wax dribbling down onto her skin was like mere raindrops for her. She did not expect herself to hiss sharply when the first droplet hit her shoulder. It appeared that the stun gun’s leftover effect intensified the burn by at least three folds. Shaw was taken aback by the revelation, staring up at the woman above her, whose smile was growing too smug for her taste. It was different, Root was different.
“One of the things I left out of my file...” Shaw matched the stupid grin with a roughish smirk of her own. “I kind of enjoy this sort of thing.”
“I’m so glad you said that,” Root replied, pouring a generous amount of liquid wax on the middle of Shaw’s chest. Her little groan sounded like music for her ears. “I do too.”
Shaw would never admit it out loud, but Root was amazing. She was very open to everything and did not shy away from blood either, a very notable plus in Shaw’s book. She had drawn a huge tree—with massive portion on the root part, for a very obvious reason—on her back with scalpel. Her creative mind was also something Shaw came to admire. They had gone through trying almost everything. Then when they were run out tools and plays to test, Root improvised. When wax play was no longer adequate, she came up with hot iron, branding her with an elegant ‘R’ on the upper thigh. When nipple clamps did not inflict the correct amount of pain anymore, she brought needles and Shaw ended up with silver piercing on her right nipple.
The most palpable advance was that Root made Shaw wetter than anyone had ever done before. It was always a session on the dungeon as foreplay then a quick fuck with one of the patrons she met on bar. The people she picked for one night stands were usually very vanilla, only good for fuck. However, ever since Root, she found herself got off within the first minutes of the action, which was good because many of her bed partners would bail once they saw the evidences of Root owning her body—Shaw suspected it was done on purpose. She also picked less and less men and more women, especially ones with tall, slender frame and dark hair. It was another thing she refused to acknowledge. She preferred not to mix business with pleasure, or in this particular instance, pleasure with pleasure. Corti was very good on what he did and she never had the urge to fuck him, but for some time now she had begun to wonder what it would feel like to fuck Root.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
Shaw narrowed her eyes, glaring defiantly at Root. “Like what?”
“Like you want to fuck me against that mirror.”
After a long silence and the annoyance pilling from seeing Root’s teasing smile, Shaw retorted back, “Will you?”
“Will I what?”
“Will you let me fuck you against that mirror?” They had finished the session; there was no need to be submissive or beat around the bush. She learnt it would fuel the taller woman’s love for innuendo and stupid sex jokes which made her even more frustrated. As expected, Root laughed. Shaw was as charmed as she was aggravated. “I’ll pay for it.” She ignored the small voice of conscience telling her that she was about to commit felony by offering money in exchange of sex (the other voice told her that her action was unsightly, like a dog in heat—she thoroughly shut it too).
“Very charming, Sameen.” Root knew Shaw hated it when she used her first name, which was exactly why she was doing it. She liked the way her name rolled off her tongue, beautiful and exotic, just like Shaw was. “Did you honestly think I’m doing this for money? Some sad woman working as pro-domme in a shady BDSM venue... You should know that it’s not my main job. Well, not my main day job.”
For all Shaw liked about Root, her talkativeness outweighed it all. Rolling her eyes, she gathered her jacket. She was on the door when Root called her name again. Her quick reflex saved her from being smacked straight on the face with whatever projectile Root was tossing her way. Looking down at the item she caught on her hand—a silver-studded leather collar, very fitting for a dog, except that she did not own any—Shaw raised a brow.
“I’ve always wanted to have a pet.”
Root had shrugged it off like nothing, but Shaw knew better. She might not be involved in their more public parties and pride parades, but Corti had shared some knowledge about the BDSM culture with her before. More than the commonly misunderstood love for abuse, he told her about the collaring event. It was supposed to be sacral, something akin to marriage. The collar felt heavy on her hand. For once, when Shaw’s gaze landed on Root, she saw uncertainty in her eyes. She was biting her lip, Shaw noted, and decided that she did not like to be the source of such alien expression on her face.
“You say the sweetest things,” Shaw muttered with a barely veiled exasperation, pushing the collar into her jacket’s pocket. She tried not to think about the odd fluttering inside her stomach afterwards, brushing it off as a sign of her going down with cold.
“Did you miss—“
Root came to an abrupt stop after her gaze fell on Shaw. The hastily applied gauze on her stomach immediately grabbed her attention. She had seen her injured. Bruises, cuts, needle marks. Root did not ask, did not coo at her either. She understood affection was not what Shaw was hoping for from meeting her. She was careful to avoid them whilst proceeding with the session, but she had never seen any fresh deep wound on her yet. Shaw drew the line at it. She would be gone for weeks and back with pinkish and raw injuries that was good enough to be left exposed without any bandage. However, the blood seeping through the white dressing told Root how new this one was. Above all, it is Shaw’s dark, empty eyes that concerned her the most.
Still, Root did not ask. “Come here,” she commanded, taking a seat on the bench. Shaw crawled to her obediently, she had taught her well. The silver on her collar glistened under the light and Root put her whole focus on it, instead of the little flinch and sharp draw of breath Shaw did with every move. “Lie over my knees,” she ordered when Shaw was close enough to kiss her stiletto boot.
Shaw did it, albeit much slower than usual. Root had to ball both of her hands into tight fists on her sides to stop herself from helping Shaw. She raised her hand and ordered her to count before bringing it down as hard as she could. Fifty two strikes, equally sore butt cheeks, and one aching hand later, Root stopped. She let Shaw slipped off her lap, smearing blood on her thigh.
With one hand grasping roughly on the chin, Root forced Shaw to see her on the eye. “I can’t fix you,” she stated with finality.
“I don’t want you to fix me,” Shaw answered back flatly, “I’m not broken.”
“Good.” Root nodded, more for the sake of assuring herself. “This is your last session. You can renew your contract or,” she pulled out a card from wherever she managed to hide one in her tight leather corset then handed it to Shaw, “you can find me.”
Shaw cocked a brow as she read the neat words printed on the card. Samantha Groves, psychotherapist. Of course, Shaw deadpanned; of course Root’s day profession would be the one she had avoided like a plague for her whole life. She briefly wondered if her lust for her had blindsided her from finding it out sooner. The way she knew how to get under her skin with mere words should have tipped her off. She could only blame herself for the failure.
Seeing that Shaw was too deep in whatever she was thinking about, Root added, “I don’t sleep with my clients and patients. You have to be neither if you want to.” She pecked her on the cheek before getting up to leave.
That was the last time they met, not that Shaw did not want to find Root—Samantha, sooner. She had stuffs to take care of. Between her boss wanting to kill her, being actually dead and coming back to live, and allying herself with Finch and Reese for the time being, she hardly had time for anything else. When everything had calmed down, she called her first time in the day. Root’s clear glee nearly caused her to hang up, but she survived the flirtiness and innuendos and scored herself an address.
Shaw swiped her wayward bangs to the side before knocking the door. She was not nervous or anything, it was just Root, she reminded herself sternly. When the door opened, she could not stop from smiling faintly. Root was wearing more clothes than Shaw had ever remembered. Gray blouse underneath dark blue suit with matching skirt, they oddly made her look more alluring. This was crazy, Shaw concluded, because all she wanted to do was ripping them off. She was glad she had great poker face.
“Hello, Samantha.”
“Come in.”
Shaw did not bother to wait. Once Root turned to face her, she closed their proximity, slamming the taller woman onto the now-closed door. She kissed her full on the lips, something she had been dying to do for quite some time. It was all the ‘you can look but you can’t touch’ teasing game that had her so desperate. She let it all pour in the kiss, using all tongue and teeth whilst her hands were doing conquering missions of their own.
“I knew you’d come back to me,” Root whispered breathlessly. Her mussed hair and darkened eyes were really distracting, in a good way. “We’re gonna have so much fun together.”
Shaw could not agree more.