Page 6 of Her Submission (Monica & Henry #2)

The Winter Palace

Those who didn’t have appointments already booked that night worked Monica and Henry’s party in the Chateau, entertaining many of the women in Le Salon: conversation and charm. And while the first of the guests began to arrive, Monica knew they were in good hands while she and Henry continued to get ready for the party.

“I don’t want to be too matchy-matchy.”

He appeared behind her at the vanity, wearing an all-black ensemble that was not in his usual repertoire.

“Because that’s a black dress you’re wearing, my dear.”

She turned around on her stool.

“This is my robe, Henry.”

“You’re not dressed yet?”

“No.”

He studied the plunging neckline of her negligee, the same one she had thrown on when coming out of the shower fifteen minutes ago.

“Huh.”

She hid her rolling eyes as she turned to her reflection and continued applying her makeup for the evening. He notices everything going on with me emotionally, but clothing? The man still didn’t know the difference between Yves St. Laurent and Gucci. The only reason he knew what a Louis Vuitton bag looked like was because the logo was stamped all over it.

Bless him.

“So this is okay?”

he asked while waltzing into the bathroom.

“What are you wearing?”

“Red!”

Hence the bold lipstick and crimson eyeshadow. Monica’s dark hair would offset both nicely.

“But your underwear is black, right?”

“Why does it matter?”

He poked his head back out of the bathroom.

“Making sure I know what you look like with your dress off.”

What a silly man! Monica was even wearing a dress she had worn a dozen times before, particularly at house parties and even at evening soirees in the city. While the red was a bit ostentatious for work, where she preferred to stay in the shadows, it was perfectly appropriate for most nighttime get-togethers. The fact that it was sleeveless was a non-issue when she often paired it with a chic red jacket in the same hue.

But if she wanted to get a bit intense? The jacket came off. Then she was the center of attention.

Her makeup was done and her dress was on when her husband reemerged, eyes locked on her.

“How about we skip the party?”

He swept her up in his embrace, eliciting laughter that Monica didn’t know she harbored.

“We’ll stay in here and make love all night.”

“Henry!”

Monica saved her hair’s integrity by expertly turning in her arms and flinging both of hers around his neck.

“Behave, Mr. Warren! The madam of the establishment has guests to entertain.”

She bit her lip, tasting the smear-proof makeup she had just applied.

“I don’t even know half of who is coming.”

He gently swayed her where they stood, lowering his nose close to hers.

“I threw in a few surprises to keep the night interesting.”

Before she exited his hold, he goosed her ass. Monica could hardly believe it! What’s gotten into him? Was he that hard-up for a night of relaxation with his wife.

“Was surprised at how many people RSVP’d.”

I can only imagine what that means.

Not having to worry about who was staying in her separate room while she was in other parts of the building was the icing on the cake as she and Henry locked up and headed toward the big parlor on the second floor, where most of the guests were ushered for cocktails and hors d’Oeuvres. Monica attempted to slip in undetected so she could do her headcount and see who had come, but between her loud red dress and Henry’s height, it was impossible for the hosts to not be heralded the moment they appeared.

“Aren’t you two gorgeous?”

That was mostly reserved for Monica when Judith approached, a drink in her hand as she got a load of her boss’s outfit.

“Monica! Where did you get this? Have I seen you wearing this before?”

She smacked her glass against the chest of the large man standing behind her.

“Have you seen Monica wearing this before, Miguel?”

Her boyfriend wasn’t shy about staring down Monica. Literally. Down. He was as tall as Henry but with far wider shoulders and a chest that could barrel through a door. Yet in his immaculately tailored French suit, he was every bit the gentleman as he grinned and said.

“That is truly your color, madam.”

His slight European – a bit of the French he usually spoke with his native Spanish – accent was likewise a touch of culture to a man who could easily intimidate the most petite woman.

“I swear, you only get more beautiful as you age.”

“Watch it.”

Judith turned toward him, her darkening blond hair swishing against her curving back.

“Or I’ll think you want my boss instead of me.”

“Not a chance, mon cherie.”

While those two entangled themselves in whatever game they played to keep the spark alive, Monica mingled.

Henry was soon lost to getting them drinks at the bar, but Monica was nothing but cordial as she welcomed people she recognized and some she didn’t.

To those people, she enthusiastically introduced herself and caught their attention because they knew her husband and were on his guest list.

For every guest who was excited to meet her due to her stellar reputation, there was another who kept a respectful distance, as if she were a mythological figure who should be reserved in a hall of shrouded mystery.

“I didn’t know if you’d make it.”

She bent down to kiss both Ethan and Jasmine on their cheeks.

Jasmine, as usual, was already tipsy on her favorite cocktail as she cozied up to her husband of nearly ten years.

Time really must stop passing so quickly.

Jasmine didn’t look a day over thirty, but Ethan sported gray on his temples as if he had any right to show his age.

At least he has his hairline.

Or maybe he didn’t.

Ethan had the same kind of fuck-you money as Henry and could get the best treatment cash could buy. Hell, so did Henry, although Monica would have been told. Probably. Maybe…

“We wouldn’t miss it for the world,”

Jasmine said.

“As long as we were in town, anyway,”

Ethan added.

“Hope you enjoy tonight’s entertainment.”

Monica wanted to sit with two of her closest friends but had more people to greet and catch up with.

“Once we get some liquor in people, anyway. They know where we are.”

“Ooh, tell me it’s ladies!”

Jasmine nailed her elbow right into Ethan’s thigh when she excitedly lurched upward. He did not hide his discomfort well.

“I could go for some lady-on-lady action tonight.”

“There are two shows. The first is, in fact, ladies. Professionals on my roster.”

Jasmine pumped her fist – her elbow discovering her husband’s rib cage this time. “Yes!”

Monica exchanged an exasperated look with Ethan, who gave her a reassuring thumbs up.

“Looking forward to it,”

he gasped.

Before going anywhere else, Monica asked one of her employees to get Ethan his favorite drink. He needed it.

“Monica.”

She soon came face-to-face with someone she had not invited and certainly didn’t expect to see. Henry… why in the world…

While they were personally as friendly as they could be, all things considered, Monica could have never anticipated her biggest business rival standing in front of her, right here in her cozy party in the mountains.

“Mr. Monroe.”

Damon extended a hand of reconciliation. Naturally, Monica shook it, careful not to do it too hard. There was such a delicate balance between upsetting people’s expectations of her submissive nature and frightening away men who didn’t like it when a woman – or anyone – crushed their hands. Which Monica absolutely could do if she put her mind to it.

“One of these days, you’ll call me Damon.”

His affable grin usually charmed the frowns off his peers, but Monica rarely reacted to it.

“Hope it’s all right if we came. Henry invited us.”

“Of course he did.”

Monica cleared her throat.

“Of course, you’re more than welcome to the Chateau. I’m assuming by ‘we’ you mean your wife?”

Damon nodded toward the woman in a sapphire blue cocktail dress placing her clutch on the bartop while waiting for her drink. She had asked for a specific kind of Coke, and the bartender hurriedly checked the stocks before signaling to a server to go into the kitchen to get it. I developed those signals. Now other establishments used them. One day, I’ll write a business memoir, I suppose. Would anybody care?

“Alice really needed to get out of town for a while,”

Damon explained.

“There are…”

He sighed.

“A lot of kids crying in our house right now.”

She laughed.

“Your growing family is kind to let us borrow your companionship for tonight, Mr. Monroe. I hope you enjoy the entertainment.”

“Mistress Mira and your darling Blair, I believe?”

Monica pursed her lips.

“They like the work.”

“Oh, I’m not doubting that. There’s a reason we couldn’t book them for The Dark Hour this weekend. Apparently, someone outbid us.”

Me. To be fair, Blair had owed Monica after accidentally breaking an expensive bottle of wine at Le Salon. The deal she brokered with Blair’s partner, Mira, was simple: a discount on performing at Le Chateau in return for wiping away the debt. It was either that or garnish it from Blair’s cut at Le Salon for the next few weeks, and neither professional performer wanted that. Bless Mira for being such a miser. The former heiress had a brush with the common life after her family died. She knew, much like Monica often did, what was at stake.

As far as Monica knew, the pair were in another room preparing for their performance. Monica had requested a specific kind and knew that her guests would enjoy it, even those who had seen them perform many times before.

“Another couple will come later, too. From Nevada. We were lucky they could stop by for a performance.”

“You do throw some of the most sophisticated parties, despite the contents.”

“Unlike you, Mr. Monroe, who is a legend for his elegant yet raunchy parties.”

He shrugged in such an easygoing way that Monica barely registered Henry coming up behind her. Not until she had a Manhattan in her hand did she recognize the arm wrapping around her shoulders.

“We owe this man a lot, don’t we, Princess?”

She encircled her arm around his waist and sipped her cocktail.

“Quite. The Monroes are always welcome. How thoughtful of you to remember to invite them, Henry.”

“Perhaps we’ll see another legendary performance from you two again?”

Both Henry and Monica looked at him with a quickened breath in their chests.

“I’m afraid those days are behind us,”

Monica politely said.

“A casualty of my daughter getting older. Maybe when she’s off at college.”

“We’ll be quite middle-aged by then.”

“We enthusiastically welcome all types in The Dark Hour, as you know,”

Damon said.

“Excuse me. My wife is known to get impatient these days.”

He paused before heading to the bar.

“Three kids do that to you.”

Monica pressed her glass between their chests as she rounded on her husband’s presence.

“You invited the Monroes?”

she teased.

“I’ve been doing business with them lately. Not in hospitality, I assure you.”

“Sometimes I forget you two are chummy.”

“Trust me, I’m not trading industry secrets. Not unless I have something juicy to share with you, Princess.”

He offered her a kiss, which she accepted.

“Three kids,”

she then said with a sigh.

“I can’t imagine it.”

“They tried for a long time after Clarise. Some heartbreak there, as I don’t have to tell you. Unfortunately, social media spread that around.”

Don’t remind me of Clarise.

Monica wouldn’t hold anything against a child, but the name reminded her of all the troubles Abigail had at school.

Because of her.

Just her.

It went beyond teasing and hair-pulling on the playground.

According to the faculty, Abigail had landed a slap a time or two, although Monica’s daughter swore that it was in the name of defending herself.

A seven-year-old should know nothing about that.

Yet now was not the time to get into that.

Monica had come here to enjoy the weekend with her husband in like-minded company, and the more people who arrived, the more she turned on her laissez-faire hostess persona who knew everything would be fine but still liked to pretend that anything could go wrong at any moment.

Except, unlike the usual parties the Chateau was paid to host by others, Monica was allowed to get tipsy at this one.

Tipsy enough to take off her jacket and show off her arms when the show started later.

The lights were dimmed while drinks continued to pour.

Blair was already in the audience doing her pre-performance best.

Half of these people have no idea she’s one of the performers.

That was half the fun.

Those who knew her through Le Salon might have known she did professional kinky shows for profit, but she didn’t do such things while hosting and convincing clients to buy expensive bottles of wine (that she sometimes broke, naturally.)

Instead, they assumed she was drumming up a different kind of business as she flirted with people and bent down to whisper naughty things in their ears, her pushed-up breasts copiously in their faces.

She bypassed Monica and Henry, only flashing them her thong beneath her silk kimono.

“Henry…”

Monica lightly pinched him by the front button.

“You act like you’ve never seen a great ass before when there’s one in your lap right now.”

“What can I say? I’m mortal.”

He slightly moved his head as Blair bent over to flirt with Jasmine, who hooted in excited laughter and almost spilled the ice out of her glass.

“You hire very beautiful women.”

“It’s almost like that’s my job.”

“Anticipating what the horny masses want to see right in front of them? Why, yes, you’re very good at that, Princess.”

“Try not to get too excited about one of my employees. It makes things awkward for our professional relationship.”

“Only if they notice I’ve looked.”

She lightly smacked him on the chest.

As their relationship wore on, Henry grew more comfortable teasing her about the beautiful women she hired for her establishments.

The trust between them was so strong that she never once worried about him straying, and certainly, her employees had never insinuated that he was untoward with them.

Why would he be? The man only had eyes for Monica when it came to sex.

They were a specific kind of yin-and-yang that complemented each other too well for there to ever be another person coming between them.

“Stop thinking about work for two seconds.”

Henry squeezed her hip as he held her closer.

“This is our party. Lighten up and try to have some fun, Princess. You’re in your element, aren’t you?”

“You know, maybe if we were anywhere else…”

“Sure. We were in a club somewhere in another state, but oh, you’re already in hostess mode because you noticed someone wasn’t having as much fun as they should.”

“I can’t help it,”

she whispered.

“It’s who I am.”

He laughed.

“I’d be a fool to not admit that it’s one of the things I love most about you. You put almost everyone ahead of yourself. Just remember that I appreciate it when you put yourself first sometimes.”

She nestled her head against his shoulder, finally allowing her breath to ease from her.

Yes, this was where she needed to be after everything that had happened recently.

When she saw how bustling this party was, and how at ease her guests were as the show started, she remembered why she even began this business.

Monica didn’t just have an eye for erotic entertainment.

She intrinsically knew what the submissive mind wanted – what the dominant heart craved.

While she best understood it from the perspective of her preferred pairing, like her marriage, it didn’t take much imagination to extrapolate that to other pairings.

After all, Mira and Blair represented one type of BDSM relationship while appealing to many others.

Mira’s history of professional sex work on stage and FansOnly was the perfect complement for Blair’s extroverted, diamond-in-the-rough submissive nature that flourished with the right partner. Which was exactly what Monica enjoyed when she detached herself from the professional relationship she enjoyed with both women. She did not desire them like she desired her husband, but they were beautiful. Both in body and in what they represented when performing on the dais to the side of the room.

Don’t worry about your guests needing anything.

That was for her employees to worry about.

Don’t fret about what happens after this. She was the hostess, but she was also here to enjoy the evening. With her husband. Her lover. Her Dom.

She placed her lips on his, tentatively, enjoying the cloak of shrouded darkness that hid them from prying eyes in the back of the audience.

And the hungry way he kissed her back was the refreshing balm she needed on her heart. No, her soul. Love was almost always enough. Love and safety.

She was safe here. With him. With their friends. Within their lifestyle, which Monica knew first-hand could bear the bloody hand of distrust and abuse.

She briefly thought of him. The man she left over a decade ago, before founding this business that had sustained her income in case worse came to worse. I had loved him. More than anyone else. No, she hadn’t just loved the man who became the Beast. She had worshipped him. Adored him. Became enslaved to him.

And she had told herself that it was what she wanted. She was happy not just serving him, but becoming beholden to him. To his money. His power. His influence over everyone.

Monica’s muscles must have tightened up, for her husband rubbed her arm and purred something delectably inaudible against her throat.

Polite applause rippled around her. Mira and Blair had finished their performance, the former taking questions from the curious audience while the latter excused herself to the nearest restroom. Monica had missed most of the show because she had been living in the past, remembering the ten years of her life she had dedicated to an abuser who made her see stars.

The celestial kind. The damned kind.

Her therapist told her to remain grounded when the intrusive thoughts came. She had given Monica the tools, the mantras to recite whenever Jackson Lyle’s face, voice, and body hit her like a stampede of wild, unbridled horses that didn’t give a shit whether she lived or died. Sometimes, she was minding her own business in a restaurant and suddenly smelled his preferred cologne or saw a waiter pass by with a medium-rare steak with asparagus on the side. His favorite meal. One of the first things she learned about her ex-Dom was that it was always the first thing he ordered at a new place, basing his future judgments on one meal.

The second thing Monica learned? How to cut said steak to his standards. Sometimes, she was expected to feed him, too. In public.

At the time, she had loved it. Lived it. Thrilled herself with knowing that man couldn’t live without her tender attention. Making her Dom smile and feel more relaxed was the least she could do in return for every wonder and miracle he performed in return. Monica wasn’t embarrassed by her servitude, but she was appalled at how easily she fell into the role of slave.

Because, as her therapist had helped her realize, that was how he treated her. And what Henry refused to do because he tacitly understood that indulging in some of Monica’s habits might be too triggering for her PTSD.

So, no matter how much she liked to occasionally cut up her husband’s food and feed him while sitting in his lap, it happened so infrequently that she sometimes forgot about it. Because Henry didn’t like it. He didn’t want to partake in anything that reminded his wife of Jackson.

If there was one thing I swore when my daughter was born… Monica would be damned if Abigail followed the same path. She would teach her daughter what to look out for, how to build trust, how to safely fall in love when the time was right. But, as her therapist loved to remind her, Monica couldn’t control her daughter’s heart or her experiences.

“You can only be there for her, Monica. You can’t save her from herself. That’s up to her.”

Monica didn’t understand. Her own mother had never been there for her. The woman had washed her hands of Monica even when millions of dollars were at her disposal. Isabella is much more of a grandmother. That always unnerved her and was one of the reasons she allowed her mother-in-law around… in a supervised position.

Isabella wasn’t supervised that weekend. Monica tried not to think about it.

The next – and final – show was a man and woman popular on the performance circuit. They had come highly recommended by Alice Monroe, who currently sat on a loveseat with her hand entwined with her husband’s. He occasionally leaned in to whisper something in her ear, making her gasp in surprise or laugh behind her hand. It warmed Monica’s heart to see another married couple with kids still find time to indulge in each other. They weren’t lifestylers quite like Monica and Henry, but she respected them for what they were.

Married. In love. Unafraid and unapologetic about who they were.

As the sweet sounds of the submissive woman’s moans filled the air, Monica fully wrapped herself around Henry and encouraged him to touch her wherever he pleased. He kept his hand on the small of her back, both supporting her in his lap and reminding her that she was loved and cherished.

Protected.

All Monica had ever wanted in her life was to be protected. There had been little of that in her childhood. While she never lived with the tyranny of physical abuse, her father was gone before she was born, and her mother cared more about hanging out at the neighborhood bar every night than taking care of Monica. I taught myself everything she was supposed to. Not just cooking and keeping house, but makeup, socialization, and even the “little”

things like her first damn period. Their tiny apartment never grew much, even when they moved. It had always been a cramped one-bedroom until Monica hit high school, then she finally had a room. Even though I slept with my mom as a kid, I was usually alone all night. She got herself up for school and came home to an empty apartment.

Latchkey kid. She supposed that’s what she was. Even her therapist agreed she could have only gone one of two ways once in college. She either doubled down on her personality and cautiously explored her sexuality… or she went all out, begging for attention from anyone.

What Monica had never expected was how deep in a hole she went. Quickly, she determined that most of the young men on her campus couldn’t give her what she wanted. They offered sex, but not a lifestyle. It took her branching out to the alumni and some of the grad students to discover what really waited for her out in the world.

It was how she met Jackson right out of college. Who then introduced her to Ethan, before he made all of his money. The best years were when the three of us were together. Jackson had been kinder, more understanding, the perfect primary partner for a woman who wanted to be doted on in exchange for her fanatical fervor. When Ethan exited the equation because he neither liked polyamory nor how “intense”

Monica was in the bedroom, everything changed.

Or… had it always been that way?

“Princess.”

Henry’s soft voice cut through her thoughts and the heavy spanking happening on the stage.

“Come back to Earth. It’s just you and me.”

He always knew. Somehow, Henry always snapped her out of it.

Monica ensconced herself in his hold, closed her eyes, and took in the moment.