True. She couldn’t help Lance, but knowing that didn’t take any of the sting out of that feeling of impotence. Being a Dominatrix meant men bent to her will. Why couldn’t the rest of the world follow suit?
Back at home, Nora crawled into her own bed and slept for a few precious hours. Her body ached from the beatings S?ren had given her but it was the ache in her heart that hurt the most. She’d known Lance all of two days and already felt that every child in the world would be blessed to have a man like him as a father. That his ex-wife and the courts judged him for what he did in private was an insult to their entire world. Kinky or not, S?ren was the best priest on the planet. Why the church and the state couldn’t stay out of their goddamn bedrooms was beyond her. After all, the church and the state often visited her bedroom and her dungeon. She’d lost her virginity to a priest, but S?ren certainly wasn’t the only member of the clergy in the Underground. She even had elected officials as her clients—congressmen, one senator, lots of lawyers and even Judge B.
Judge B....
Nora’s eyes flew open as she remembered the rest of what S?ren had said to her last night.
There’s nothing you can do to help him...unless you became a lawyer or judge and forgot to tell me...
No, she was no judge, but she did have a judge who worshipped the ground she walked on and the feet that walked on it. Still she couldn’t think of a bigger breach of protocol than to ask a client to do her a favor—a likely illegal favor.
Kingsley would flay her himself if he found out. Then again, what Kingsley didn’t know didn’t hurt him...
At eleven sharp Lance knocked on her door again.
“Are you going to come in this time?” Nora asked when she found him on her front porch looking unnecessarily handsome. She was going to have to talk to him about being less attractive.
“Can I trust you?”
“No.”
“Then no.” Lance took a step back on her porch.
“Wait...ask the question again. I’ll get it right this time.”
Lance laughed and shook his head. Instead of asking the question, he simply came inside the house.
“So this is the house of a Dominatrix?” He glanced around her living room.
“Were you expecting more whips and chains? Dungeon chic?”
“I was, actually.”
Nora plopped down on her couch in her cozy living room decorated with overstuffed furniture and bookcases.
“Those are all upstairs in the closet. And there’s some stuff in the office, but only because I keep my toy bag in there.”
“You live alone?”
Lance examined her bookcase. She wondered if they’d read any of the same books.
“I do. I’m trying to imagine who could put up with me as a roommate. Maybe Job. I’d need someone patient.”
“Job?”
“The dude in the Bible with all the problems who just sat there and took it? ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away—blessed be the name of the Lord’? That guy?”
“Interesting. Never had a domme quote the Bible at me before.”
“Gets more interesting—my mom’s a nun.”
Lance’s eyes popped wide open.
“You’re kidding me.” He sat down on the chair by the couch. Nora had to feel a little flattered he didn’t feel safe enough to sit next to her on the sofa.
“My mother wanted to be a nun all her life. But she got knocked up with me as a teenager and that dream went out the window. But after my dad was killed—”
Lance started to say something and Nora held up her hand to stop him.
“No, we are not talking about my father today,” she said and Lance nodded his reluctant acquiesce. “Once I became a legal adult, there were no impediments to Mom joining a religious order. I thought she was crazy. We’d had some rough times when I was a teenager.”
“Now that doesn’t surprise me one bit.”
“Yeah, I put the woman through ten kinds of hell. But I thought a convent might be a little extreme. I moved back in with her for a few months hoping we could make up for some lost time. Maybe some mother-daughter bonding would change her mind about throwing her entire life away.”
“Didn’t work?”
Nora shrugged. “Mother and daughter did not good roommates make. Let’s just say when she found out about my lifestyle, who I was sleeping with and what we were doing, the proverbial excrement hit the metaphorical oscillator.”
“The shit hit the fan?”
“With gusto. That was the last straw for Mom. The world was depraved beyond redemption and the only hope for a woman of faith to remain pure in such a wasteland was to join a convent and never venture out into the world again. So she did.”
“Wow.” Lance gave an impressed whistle. “Catholic priest is a sadist and the sexiest Dominatrix on earth has a nun for a mother. Anything else?”
Nora only smiled.
“Nothing that matters.”
“So...” Lance stood up again. “What’s the plan for the day? You ready to go?”
“I actually don’t have any clients today. Rarely see clients on Sunday unless it’s an emergency.”
Lance narrowed his eyes at her.
“Do I want to know what constitutes a kink emergency?”