“Yes.” I continued my game with him. I acted as though it were the truth. And really, I should arrive earlier. Or, at least, make a point to do so more often.
“Well, okay,” Josh began. After a short pause he added, “I’m glad you arrived early so you could talk to members.”
“Good,” I said confidently. I felt like he’d believed me. Maybe.
“So … why are you leaning on the back of this couch instead of walking around talking to members?”
Fucker.
“Josh—”
“Before you feed me more lines and pretend that I’m an idiot, let me remind you that I know your ass.”
I sighed. “I was watching some negotiations,” I admitted.
“Yeah?” Josh asked. His tone was excited but wary, like I might be leading him along. “Watching negotiations as in, a refresher?”
I turned my head to look at him. He could tell. I knew he could. Josh flung his arm around my shoulder and patted my bicep.
“That’s great, Andrew. Here, I’ll practice with you.”
“No. Josh, I don’t think I need to do mock negotiations.”
“Yes. It’s healthy. I do them all the time with Ali.”
I was well aware of Josh and Ali’s session negotiation games. They would try to say the most outlandish things to draw a laugh out of the other one. Sam had his hands full with these two.
“Come on. Answer for real and not like you’re trying to make me laugh, okay?”
I nodded. I supposed there wasn’t anything wrong with running through things a few times. After all, it had been a while.
“Okay, for my own reference, who would you like to negotiate a session with?”
“Josh, no, this is a bad idea,” I said and started to push away from the couch. His arm tightened around me, and I leaned against the couch again.
“No, no! Just tell me. That way I have a point of reference and might know what the person would ask.”
“Oh, what, you’re suddenly an expert?”
“You’d be surprised how predictable people are. Now come on, who?”
“Mistress Tabitha.”
“Yeah, Andrew. Good, good choice, man. I like your thinking. Skipping the amateurs and going right for the top shelf Tops.” Josh’s smile was broad, and he raised and lowered his eyebrows at me.
“I’ve had an amateur. We know how that went.”
“No, you didn’t have an amateur. You had a violent woman with severe anger issues.” He was right. “Mistress Tabitha will be perfect, Andrew.”
“What if I’m not, though? What if I’ve forgotten everything? What if it doesn’t stop when I need it to?” My nerves started to get the better of me, and thoughts started tumbling out of my mouth. My filter usually stopped things from coming out that were really quite illogical, but, clearly, it wasn’t working right now.
“Dude, relax.” Josh’s voice was calm but serious. “First off, you don’t have to be perfect. No one is. All I meant was that Mistress Tabitha would be perfect for your first time back at this. She’s exactly what you need. And second, it will stop when you need it to. So get that out of your mind. And lastly, you don’t have to know what you’re doing anyhow. That’s part of the beauty of being a submissive. You can relax and just absorb everything. Let the Top guide you and take you where you need to go. You know that. James taught your ass that.”
I sighed again as my eyes fell on another couple negotiating a session.
“I’m concerned I’ll fumble and just go along with whatever during negotiations.”
“You know James would gladly be present during your negotiations. He’s told us that before, no matter what.”
