Anita Blake 22.6 - Shutdown Read Free Page A

be dominated in every way. Anita just wants Richard to dominate her physically with his superior strength, so she thinks of it as just bottoming.”
    “But Richard says that she lets Asher do a great deal more than just use his strength. Asher . . . well, he . . .” she seemed acutely embarrassed.
    “He ties me up and does nefarious things to me,” I said.
    Ellen nodded. “Yes, that.” She actually blushed.
    Since I used to blush at the drop of a hat, I sympathized. “I maintain that it isn’t what a person enjoys in the bedroom, or dungeon, that makes them submissive, but the mindset that goes with it.”
    “You go as far into sub mindset as Asher does sometimes,” Richard said.
    “What’s sub mindset?” she asked.
    I suddenly despaired of ever explaining this enough to her. It was like explaining color to the blind: they accept that there is such a thing as color, but they have no basis for understanding it as a reality. Either you enjoyed being tied up, or you didn’t, and if you didn’t you were just never going to understand it.
    Micah stroked my thigh with his free hand as if he’d felt some of my frustration. “I don’t honestly understand that personally, myself,” he said, “but I’ve seen Anita do it. Her eyes, face, body language changes. It’s as if some tension leaves her that she holds onto in every other part of her life, except in the bedroom, or the dungeon.”
    “Richard told me it’s not a real dungeon.”
    We actually did have access to a real dungeon at the Circus of the Damned, but I couldn’t make myself use it for fun. I’d seen friends chained in the place for real torture when evil vampires had been in charge of things. I knew that Richard had taken Asher to it for fun and games, but at my request Nathaniel would not go with Asher to play without me. I still had nightmares about a friend dying chained to one of the walls, and Nathaniel in there for anything was just too close to that memory.
    Micah smiled, softly. “It’s just a term for the bondage side of things that go beyond just rough sex.” We’d all agreed not to cloud the issue with mentioning we did have a real dungeon.
    She winced, I think at the term “rough sex.” Again, it wasn’t a good sign. How vanilla was Dr. Ellen Radborne? The thought of Richard married to someone who thought just saying the phrase “rough sex” was embarrassing, or bad in some way, made me sad for him. I knew that Richard was capable of enjoying gentler lovemaking, but he was so well-endowed that there was an element of roughness in most of his sex. How could you enjoy sex with him if you didn’t like it a little rough? Or maybe, how would Richard be able to enjoy it if she didn’t like a little rough? It just seemed sad. Why was he doing this to himself?
    Some of what I was thinking must have shown because Richard looked at me. I stared into that handsome face with those high, perfect cheekbones, and male model face, and thought, he should have been able to have almost anyone he wanted, why Ellen?
    “Ellen is willing to try and let me keep you, Asher, and Jean-Claude in my life, Anita. That’s a lot.”
    I nodded. “Yes, yes it is.” I sounded tired even to me as I said it.
    Micah hugged me, placing his face next to mine. I cuddled into the warmth of the skin on skin contact; sometimes even touching through clothes wasn’t enough. My hands found his and one hand slid up his arm until we were half-hugging.
    “Richard explained that excessive touching in public is a sign of stress, or need for reassurance between lycanthropes. What happened just now to stress you, Anita?”
    I opened my eyes where I was cuddled in against the warmth and pulse of Micah’s neck. I looked at her, and it might not have been an entirely friendly look, because her eyes widened just a bit. I switched the look higher to Richard, and said, “What do you want me to say, Richard?”
    “Ellen, honey,” he said, her hand in his, “that’s not