Amelia felt overwhelmed. Too many people, too much going on. She had begun to feel safe with Josh, but all these people stopping to talk to him, and the undercurrents of conversation that she didn’t understand, it all made her anxious. She was trying to smile but her lips felt cold and stiff. If only Sara had been here, it wouldn’t have been like this.

“Sir,” said Sofia, “maybe we should go on in?” Amelia wondered who she was talking to, if Josh and Lucas were both called Sir, how did anybody know who she meant?

But Sir Lucas answered, “Yes, you’re right. Let’s go. Josh, we’ll see you later – Amelia, nice meeting you.”

Josh turned to Amelia. ”Sorry. First night back and all that. You’ll like them, Sir Lucas and his girl, Sofia.”

Amelia thought it was odd to call Sofia his “girl,” since she was at least Amelia’s age and maybe older. But it had all begun to feel a bit like the Mad Hatter’s tea party in Alice to her at this point. 

“It’s ok,” she said, trying to smile naturally. ”Maybe I should go home anyhow. Come back with Sara sometime.” 

She was already standing, and the temptation to just run was strong. She wondered if Josh would try to stop her, and wasn’t sure what she would want him to do.

But he just nodded. ”If that’s what you want to do, of course you can.” She was surprised, relieved and then disappointed, rapidly, one feeling after the other tumbling through her. ”Did you drive?” he asked.

“No, I uber’ed here, I was planning to ride home with Sara.” She sighed. ”I guess I better call uber before I go outside.” 

He nodded. ”Before you call,” he said, “Let me walk you out. I’d like to talk just a minute away from here.”

She nodded. They made their way to the door, he held it for her as they stepped outside. The air was still warm, although cooler than it had been earlier; it was just starting to get dark. She followed him a few steps away from the door.

”Nice and quiet out here, isn’t it?” He asked. 

She nodded. “It is. It was getting stuffy in there too.”

”Yeah. I’m curious,” he said. Can I ask you a question?”

She nodded, “Of course.”

”Why did you decide to come here tonight?”

”Oh,” she had to pause and think, what had made her think this was a good idea? “I was curious, I guess,” she said. “I’ve never been to a – to a dungeon before, so when Sara said she’d been coming here, I wanted to see what it was like.” 

He nodded. “Curious because you think you might be a bit kinky yourself?”

”Oh!” She was sure she was blushing and hoped it was too dark for him to tell. “I – I don’t know.” He was watching her, his eyes intent on her face. “I mean – maybe.” 

He nodded. “So did you find out what you wanted to know?”

”Not -“ she looked down, away from him, “not exactly,” she said. “I mean, I wanted to see the dungeon.”

“Then why are you leaving?” She looked back up at him, startled. He was still watching her, smiling just a bit. She was trying to think of an answer that would satisfy him, when he added, “Tell me you don’t want to answer if you don’t want to. But if you do answer, be honest with me -and yourself.”

She bit her lip. Damn. She couldn’t make something up after that. “I just – it just felt overwhelming all of a sudden.”

”Overwhelming?”

”Yes, like it was just too much, I felt…” and she stopped, feeling silly.

”Felt what?” Josh pressed.

”Scared,” she whispered. “I was scared.”

He smiled, a warm, friendly smile. “Good girl for admitting it,” he said.

Again, she felt that rush of warm pleasure.  Stop it, she thought to herself. This is not an erotic novel, you are not a cliche. 

“Seems like you’ve got three choices now,” He went on, ticking them off on his fingers. “One, you can call Uber and go home, still curious. Two, you can let me drive you home, still curious. Or three, you can come back in with me. People will leave us alone once we’re in the dungeon. We’ll just walk around and look a little bit. Then, when you’ve gotten some satisfaction – when your curiosity is a bit more satisfied – then I can take you home or you can call Uber. It’s up to you.”

She hesitated, torn between wanting to leave and wanting to stay. Acutely aware of Josh waiting for her response, she bit her lip again. ”I don’t know…”

He laughed. ”Let’s walk around the block and you can think about it.”

*****************

In the vanilla world, I’m wishing I could spend more time blogging and writing stories. I have a long term plan for Sofia and Lucas, which I started years ago, and am curious – I’d love to know:

• If you have a kink blog on WordPress, have you reported it as “Mature Content?” If you have, what difference does it make? Can people still find you on Reader?
• Has anyone monetized their content with the “buy me a coffee” option? How does that work?
• Have you created a group of posts that require payment to access? (No, I’m not planning to do this, just curious.)
• Have other thoughts on monetizing your blog?

You can answer in a comment or email me at oliviahisservant@gmail.com

And Happy Valentine’s Day!

I was thinking I needed to do a whole Valentine’s Day post, but then I saw in my stats that a bunch of people had already visited my Valentine’s Day post from 2019. You can find that here. Enjoy!