Tamed In A Tri-love Resort

Chapter 2

Thigh high boots that laced up the side with satin ribbon might be chosen. It was entertaining to watch a man take a zipper down with his teeth, but to watch him work to pull out the same bindings that she might use to restrain him later...that was delightful. She could feel the hot touch of his mouth through the lacings, a sensation zippered boots could not provide.

Her long blonde hair might be swept up on her head, with just a few tendrils down to caress her neck.

She would paint her lips with a delicate pink lipstick, and line her eyes with a charcoal pencil to deepen their impact.

At last ready, she would be off to an evening that could last until dawn, in one of Atlanta's upscale fetish clubs. There she might wander the "dungeons", and be mesmerized by a performer slicking oill over the taut muscles of a manacled young man and disciplining the aroused submissive with a riding crop.

Scarlett had been aware of being a Dom sexually since college, thanks to an adventurous first boyfriend.

She used the shortened insider term often instead of Dominatrix. She liked the word, but knew it had become a caricature in people's minds; a woman with a God-complex dressed up in leather and thigh high boots, wielding a whip and a smirk.

It was a part of her life that friends such as Lilia did not know about, for exactly that reason. Scarlett was not ashamed; she simply knew that most of them would have the same view of it as propagated by television, a comedic farce of leather and chains.

Subconsciously, Lilia did understand, Scarlett knew. In the alpha-male heroes and submissive-yet-feisty heroines of her romance novels, Lilia instinctively created characters that danced around a fragile triangle of control, trust and s*x, and a few million readers just as instinctively responded to it.

There was an intimacy to a relationship between a Dominant and submissive that pulled on the elemental need for unconditional love and trust. So while she did not share her preferences with those closest to her, Scarlett desperately wanted to find someone to share them with her, as well as a lifetime of love, marriage and all the rest. It was not just the submissive who had needs. The Dominant had vulnerabilities that were comforted and healed by the faith and pleasure of the submissive. They were two parts of a whole.

The salty spray of Caribbean waters misted her skin and Scarlett did not turn her face away, hoping it might also wash away some of her thoughts.

Maybe she was meant to be alone. When a woman got to be nearly thirty and was delighted to be going on a retreat by herself, it said something. Maybe the energy for making a relationship work from scratch just ran out as a person got into three decades of living. So much was soaked up by the career, the commitments to family and friends.

When the first thought upon meeting a guy was, do I really have time for this relationship s**t ?, it was a pretty obvious indicator. Everybody wanted love and a Mr. or Mrs. Forever, but only if he/she fit seamlessly into their life without disrupting the pattern already set by tenacious individuality.

The touch of Elliot's hands and his moist mouth invaded her cynical thoughts, and her skin shuddered, the response of gnawing sensual hunger. She could find something to feed the body, but would she ever find someone to feed the heart? There were no emotional vibrators out there.

Hanna, a third generation American-Spanish waitress and performer at Scarlett's favorite club, had tried to get Scarlett to do performances, even become one of the dungeon regulars. But she wasn't looking to fulfill someone's fantasies for one night. She missed the intimacy; she missed Elliot. Cold, calculating Elliot who had turned out to be...not hers.

Scarlett shook out of the thoughts as she ducked under the boom for the smooth swing of the tack. She could do this, focus on a skill she had neglected, enjoy the fading sun on her shoulders. If she didn't know Lilia would stand there until she reached the beach, she would have stopped the boat mid-way and watched the sun melt into gold fire on the water.

Lilia's defection had been fated. For several months, her friend had been at her disposal for long, tearful phone calls and last minute trips by plane to hold Scarlett together. It was time to start manufacturing her own glue again.

Scarlett couldn't see the houses, even as she drew closer to the island. They had been designed to blend into the maritime forest. Though Lilia's had a clear view of the beach, Scarlett could not make it out at all through the green canopy, a thick weave of palms, knotted sea-swept oaks, and uncut understory.

Everything was postcard colors, from the crystal blue of the water through which she waded, to the white crystals of the beach onto which she tugged the boat. She found the piling driven there for tying the vessel against high tide's grasp and made it fast. Just to ease Lilia's mind, she sat down, just out of the water's reach, pulled out the cell phone and left a message with her friend's answering service.

Scarlett replaced the cell phone and eased back onto the sand, absorbing the silence. Only the soft whisper of wind and surf, and the gentle movement of the sails of the tied boat, spoke to her.

It was as if she had stepped into an alternate universe. How often did a person get to be genuinely alone, not just the privacy of one's house, but in absolute quiet, both within and without?

Scarlett closed her eyes and stretched out her arms, feeling the rough grains of sand shift and trickle over her biceps as she slid them through the sand like a bird's wings. She nestled her head into the soft stuff and chuckled at the image of herself rooting with the joyous pleasure of a canine.

She arched her back and pressed her hips deeper into the soft mattress that smelled of the sea. The sun kissed her lips, warmed a path along her bared throat.

Without warning, the memory of Elliot's hands was upon her. She remembered his lips touching, sucking, and caressing. Her body arched harder in instinctive reaction, wishing...wishing he had offered the intimacy that the eager touch of those lips and the caress of those strong hands had seemed to promise. The distant eyes were a mocking contrast to the expert lovemaking. He did exactly and only what she bid him to do. Even a dominatrix couldn't command a heart to love her.