The Importance of Being Alice Page 12

  “I was wondering what nipple clamps felt like. These look painful.”

  She came over to look with him. “They do.”

  “Have you ever tried them?”

  “Once.”

  “And you didn’t enjoy the experience?”

  “Are you kidding?” She covered both breasts protectively with her hands. “There is no way on god’s green earth anyone is ever again using anything on my boobs that contains the word ‘clamp’ in the name.”

  “I would tend to agree with you on that. I just wondered if there was something I was missing, since the establishment seemed to feel that they would be used enough to justify the expense of making up these parrots.”

  Her face screwed up in thought as she absently patted the parrot’s head. “Plus there’s the silly factor.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The silly factor.” She waved her hand toward his chest. “Let’s say you are turned on by nipple clamps. That’s fine and well, and I could even deal with it, although I’d take you down if you ever came close to using one on me, but there’s a bit of a difference between a guy lying back being all sexy and come-hither and mmrowr-worthy, and a man who has a toy stuffed parrot hanging from his nips.”

  He got a mental image of just that, and had to agree. “No nipple clamps, then.”

  “Well, I don’t know. You haven’t tried it. I did. Mind you, I almost decked my boyfriend at the time, and swore never to let anyone abuse my poor little nipples again.” She cupped her hand around her right breast. “But you haven’t tried it. Maybe we should give that a go. You know, just so you can see if it’s something that turns your crank.”

  “My crank,” he said, tossing the parrot onto the bed behind her, “has no need to be clamped in order to be turned. In fact . . . I hope you’re not going to take this the wrong way, because I’m happy to indulge you, but I don’t know that we really need this room. I find you exciting enough as you are, without pirate trappings to stir my interest.”

  He was relieved to see her nod her understanding. “Because we’re not an old couple who needs to spice things up, you mean? I’m with you on that. Just thinking about you today has made my tongue swell a good two or three sizes, but YOLO.”

  There was a moment when he was convinced that his brain had stopped working, because he hadn’t the slightest idea what she said. “Yolo? Is that another safe word? I haven’t even put you in the stocks and started admiring your ass, and you’re safe wording me already?”

  “YOLO is a popular acronym these days,” she said, looking with interest at the stocks. “It means you only live once. I figured that since we were here, and there was a pirate room, we might as well take advantage of it. You really want to lock me into the stocks? I thought you said that you don’t like your women tied down.”

  “I don’t,” he said, then realized he just contradicted himself. He swallowed hard. “Erm . . . perhaps just the stocks. It holds much promise, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe,” she said, giving him an odd look. “Well. I suppose we should get down to business, since we just have the room for a little bit. Um. I guess we should take off our clothes.”

  “That would probably be best. Less staining that way,” he agreed, feeling more than a little uncomfortable. He didn’t want to disappoint Alice, however. Not when she was so clearly looking forward to having sex in a risqué club. He unbuttoned his shirt, trying to keep his attention on her, and not on their surroundings.

  Alice pulled off her shirt and hesitated a moment, then removed her walking shorts. She stood in front of him in nothing but her pirate hat, sandals, and underwear, her skin pricked with goose bumps, her arms wrapped around her middle.

  He slid off his shoes, removed his pants, and folded them, placing them with his shirt on the nearest barrel. “Well,” he said, not knowing how to begin. Was she expecting him to be a pirate?

  “Yeah,” she said, sounding as uncomfortable as he felt. “Here we are.”

  He eyed her. “Are you in any way aroused by this situation?”

  “Not in the least. You?”

  “Sex is about the furthest thing from my mind at this moment,” he said.

  They stared at each other; then without a word they both hurried back into their clothing. “We can at least play on the pirate ship,” Alice said a minute later, now fully dressed. She clambered up the wooden ladder, the parrot in her hand. “Yarr ’n’ stuff!”

  “Play?” He frowned at her when she took hold of the ship’s wheel and gave it a spin.

  “Yeah, you know, play. Don’t tell me you don’t play?”

  “I am an adult,” he said sternly.

  “So am I, but all work and no play makes Elliott a dull baron.”

  “Regardless, it’s not something I do. At least, not in the sense you mean. I’m quite fond of playing several video games. They can be quite relaxing.”

  “So can regular playing. Don’t make that face—I’ll be happy to show you how to let down your hair and have a little fun. Come up here, Cap’n Sexy Pantaloons, and if you’re good, I’ll let you bend me over the capstan.”

  Elliott didn’t quite know how to take that. He wasn’t used to a playful sexual partner—all his girlfriends had been businesswomen or relatives of neighbors, and although they were pleasing in bed, they didn’t play. “I thought you weren’t turned on by this situation,” he said, slowly climbing the ladder to the faux ship. “I should warn you that I do not know how to role-play, let alone how to pretend I am a pirate captain.”

  “You don’t have to be a pirate if you don’t want to. I can be the captain, and you can be my sexy captured prisoner.” He frowned, but before he could protest, she continued with a little laugh, “Elliott, just because I agree that this room isn’t conducive to wild jungle sex doesn’t mean I don’t want to kiss you, and touch your chest, and maybe bite that line of muscles at the top of your shoulders that drives me wild.” She held up the parrot. “And I really want to try a nipple clamp on you.”

  “No nipple clamps.”

  “You big poop,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, we’ll leave the parrot for another time. We’ll just play a little. You liked the stocks, right? Well, let’s try this. . . . I’ll put you in the stocks and molest you a little bit, and then we can switch and you can do the same to me. Sound good?”

  “I agree with the stocks, but I insist that you take the first turn in them.”

  “Nuh-uh,” she said, taking his hand and jumping off the side of the ship. He leaped after her, allowing her to lead him over to the stocks. “You had your way this morning. It’s my turn to touch you. How does this work? Oh, there’s a latch on the side. OK, in you go.”

  He hesitated, but in the end did as she directed, not wishing to ruin her entire experience. He was fully clothed, after all, and since she obviously intended for him to stay that way, it wouldn’t hurt to indulge her a bit. He placed his hands and head in the appropriate spots, reminding himself that he would have his turn, a turn that he planned to enjoy for a good deal of time.

  Alice closed the stocks over his head with a metallic snap of the latch. “There we go. Now you’re my prisoner, Lord Hunkybuns.”

  “I refuse to be a Hunkybuns, lord or otherwise,” he said firmly.

  “Boy, you really are new to playing, aren’t you?” She stood in front of him in an attitude of deep thought. “Prince Punkypants?”

  “No.”

  “Lord Largeloins?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Does playing always involve a name change? I don’t see why you can’t just call me Elliott.”

  “I know!” She leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose. “You can be Dirk Dashing, the Earl of Erogenous, and I’ll be Jasmine, Queen of the Midnight Sea. All right, Dirk, now that I have you in my grasp, prepare to be molested like you’ve never been molested before.”


  He shifted his weight. “It goes without saying that I look forward to any and all molesting you care to enact upon me, but if you could speed it along, I would appreciate it.”

  “Oooh, anxious for it, are you?” She smiled and held up the parrot. “Shall we start with the nipple clamps?”

  He glared at the parrot. “I distinctly remember telling you no just a few minutes ago. I haven’t changed my mind since then.”

  “I know, but it seems like too good of an opportunity to waste.” She giggled; then, before he could protest, she spread the parrot’s legs and clipped each foot to his shirt. “OK, that’s just funny as hell.”

  He looked down, sighing to himself at the sight of the parrot dangling spread-eagle and upside down from his shirt. “It’s so hilarious I’m surprised I haven’t ruptured a spleen or two in reaction.”

  She laughed, a sound he relished, even in his present ignominious circumstances. “I’m so going to get a picture of us before I let you out. Consider it my blackmail picture of you.”

  “I’m sure it will be worth millions. Would you consider me churlish if I asked you to continue with whatever you have planned for me? These stocks are a bit low for someone of my height, and I suspect being bent over like this won’t be good for my back.”

  “Got a bad back, huh?” she asked, placing the pirate hat on his head before running her fingers down his sides.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  She moved around behind him. He rolled his eyes to the side in an effort to see what she was doing.

  “Poor Dirk, with all those sore muscles. Maybe I should massage them.”

  Her fingers grasped his ass, making him jerk upward against the top rail of the stocks. He swore at the pain of the wood against his neck. At the same time, a muscle in his back, protesting the unusual attitude, gave a twinge of protest.

  “Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you like that. I just couldn’t resist because your butt was right there, and to be honest, I’ve been wanting to do that for what seems like forever.” Alice’s voice was contrite. “Did you hit your head?”

  “No, my neck, but if you could unhook this thing, I believe I need to straighten up before my back begins to spasm.”

  “You’re a baron,” she pointed out, coming around to the front of the stocks. “Barons aren’t supposed to have bad backs.”

  “I’m also six foot four, and hover around the fifteen-stone mark, both of which mean I’m pretty much guaranteed to have back problems, so if you could release me, I’ll do a few stretches that the physiotherapist recommends, and then we can switch positions.”

  “Not so fast there, Lord—damn, this is a stiff latch—Erogenous. I barely had any chance to molest you, and . . . dammit! That broke my nail. . . . And you can ogle my butt without me being in the stocks, not that I think you should be ogling it anyway, because it’s not particularly . . .”

  Her voice trailed away to nothing. Elliott’s back gave another warning spasm. He turned his head as far as he could. The hat slipped down over one eye, giving him an unintentionally rakish appearance. “Alice, I realize you enjoy playacting and such, and I hate to appear to be such a feeble creature that I can’t stand doubled over for more than a few minutes at a time before my back fails me, but I assure you that it will soon become uncomfortable for me—”

  “I’m not playing with you, silly. I know backs are nothing to mess with when they go hurty,” she interrupted, her head bent over the metal latch that closed the stocks. “This stupid thing is stuck or something. I can’t pry the bit up that needs to move so it’ll unhook.”

  His back gave a massive twinge. A sense of panic filled him when he tried to pull his hands free, but apparently, the people at this club ordered their stocks from a source that believed in truly confining the participants. “Use something to pry it up, Alice,” he demanded, wincing against the pain jabbing upward along his back.

  “Like what?” she asked, spinning in a circle as she looked around the room.

  “I don’t care what you use. Anything! Break the damned thing if you have to.”

  She took one look at his face and ran for the door. “I’ll get someone to help.”

  That was all he needed, he thought as he tried to flex his back in an attempt to forestall more spasms. There he was, doubled over and confined in a German sex club, a lavender and indigo captain’s hat on his head, parrot hanging from what appeared to be his nipples, and a grimace of pain on his face. The way his day was going, Alice would have a blackmail photo to keep her in wealth the rest of her life.

  Ten minutes later, three of the club personnel, two maintenance men, and a cluster of bystanders applauded when the hinge was unscrewed and removed, allowing Elliott to be released from his bondage. He straightened up with an audible groan, his hands on his back in an attempt to stretch the cramping muscles.

  “I’m so sorry,” Alice said for the fifth time, hovering around him in obvious desire to help him, but not knowing how. “I’d never have locked you in that damned thing if I thought it would hurt you. Oh thank you, Herr Keller. I much appreciate you getting that off Elliott. Danke, danke, everyone.”

  It took another fifteen minutes of stretching, and having Alice walk on his back, before he could stagger out of the club, Alice clutching his arm in case he needed her. He wanted to laugh at the idea that she could prop up someone of his size, but to be honest, her fussing around him was the only thing that made the experience worthwhile.

  They left the club, the parrot, hat, and cat-o’-nine-tails in a carrier bag that swung between them as Alice assisted him down the street. He couldn’t quite straighten his back entirely, but it wasn’t as bad as it could be, so on the whole, Elliott was hopeful that he’d be right as rain after a night’s rest.

  “Are you angry?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.

  “Me? No,” he said, honestly surprised at her question. He had tried hard not to give her the impression that he was angry about the accident with the stocks; he knew full well it was due to faulty equipment, and nothing she had done. “I don’t blame you at all, and I’m sorry if you took my silence for condemnation. I was just trying to remember if I brought any muscle relaxers with me.”

  “Oh.” She bit her lower lip. “Regardless, I feel terrible that our playtime ended so badly. But at least the sex club gave your room rental back, so it wasn’t as bad as it could be.”

  “It could have been quite worse,” he agreed magnanimously.

  “And those two guys who felt up your butt while the maintenance dude was working on that hinge were kicked out because they violated the ‘must have fondlee’s consent’ rule, or so that pink-haired woman who spoke English said, so at least they won’t do that to the next guy trapped in the stocks.”

  “I will sleep easier knowing that.”

  “As for the photos, I have Herr Keller’s assurance that they won’t post any of the pictures of you on their Web site. I’m afraid I couldn’t confiscate the phones of the people who stood around taking videos, but no one but the manager knows who you are, and I made him promise he wouldn’t tell anyone, so at worst, at very worst, all that would happen would be a few videos are put up on YouTube of some unknown British tourist who got stuck. There should be no mention of your name, so none of your friends will ever find out this happened.”

  He sighed. He didn’t want to think about all those people with their damned phones.

  Alice glanced worriedly at him. “I will be happy to walk on your back again once we get you back to the ship. That seemed to make it feel a bit better, didn’t it?”

  “A bit, although I’d prefer that you sat on my front rather than walked on my back.”

  She blinked a couple of times. “Did you just proposition me?”

  “Yes, yes I did, Jasmine of the Midnight Sea.”

  Her eyes lit with amusement. “O
ooh, someone wants to play despite a hurty back, and the guys with cameras, and the unwarranted butt-gropage.”

  It wasn’t easy, but he trotted out a smile. Truly, none of the horrible events were her fault, so it wasn’t fair to blame her for what had turned out to be a nightmarish visit. “I thought it only right since I ruined your pirate experience.”

  She stopped, and despite the fact that they were on the middle of the pavement, with people streaming to and fro around them, she kissed him, her breath warm on his lips as she said, “You really are one in a million, Elliott. I don’t know of another man who would have withstood all that indignation, not to mention real pain, and not bitten my head off at least once during the evening.”

  He gave a one-shouldered shrug, and put his arm around her waist, pulling her in close to his body, her scent working its usual aphrodisiac magic. “You weren’t to blame. Besides, it was an enjoyable day up to that point.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” She looked pleased for a few seconds; then a shadow seemed to come over her mood. “What . . . uh . . . you never did tell me what the family problem was. If that’s not being too nosy, and assuming that it was a problem you were dealing with.”

  Elliott frowned at the reminder. He didn’t know if the budding relationship with Alice was going to go anywhere, but he knew that because of her situation, he’d have to leave the pace up to her lest he push her too far too fast. And interference from a brother sent to investigate would be bound to put her back up—it certainly made Elliott feel itchy just knowing his mother was sending in siblings to spy on him. “Not a real problem, no. More a situation that had to be dealt with.”

  “Oh? Nothing serious, I hope.”

  Alice looked as if she’d like to know more, but if there was anything he’d rather talk about than his family, he couldn’t think of it. “No, just the usual distractions of being the oldest of twelve.”

  “Twelve! Man, your parents . . . oh, jeez, that was rude.” Alice’s eyes had widened, but she gave his arm an apologetic squeeze. By that time, they had approached the ship. Luckily, no one else was present to watch him lumber in.