“Yes, well,” The Mistress said when the cuteness reach its zenith. “This is all well and good, but if I’m here then someone has got to get their ass kicked tonight. Do we have any volunteers?”

Cara’s hand shot up straight in the air. Robert reached up, gently clasped her wrist and pulled her hand back down.

“Now that was uncalled for.” The Mistress shook her head in disgust.

“Mistress, Cara is blind. Completely. You don’t go around beating up blind women. Especially not when the blind woman happens to be my wife.”

“Your wife clearly wants to be beaten,” The Mistress reminded him. “Remember this?” The Mistress threw her arm up in the air and waved it eagerly. “You should. It happened like seven seconds ago.”

“Yes, you should, Robert,” Cara said, an edge of irritation in her voice. “I want it.”

“You only you think you want it. You’re just curious because we ran into Toni last week.”

“Toni was your kinky ex-girlfriend?” The Mistress’s ears perked up at that. “Not the Toni? Toni the sexy masochist who used to sleep with Kingsley? And by ‘sleep’ I mean anything but sleep?”

“She also used to sleep with me,” Robert admitted with a sheepish shrug of his broad shoulders. “And we did actually sleep sometimes.”

“God damn. You used to fuck Toni the Tiger. That girl scared half the sadists in the Underground. I saw her play human pincushion during an erotic acupuncture play scene once. She didn’t even bleed. You must be even more hard-core than I pegged you for.” The Mistress turned to Cara. “I mean ‘pegged’ metaphorically. I haven’t pegged your husband. That costs extra.”

“Understandably,” Cara said, nodding. “Here’s the thing, Mistress. He is hard-core. We ran in to this Toni woman and I could hear her drooling over him. I grilled him that night. I wanted to know everything. I’m not jealous at all. Really.

“Really?” The Mistress raised an eyebrow.

“Fine. I am jealous. Not that he had a relationship with her, but that he had that kind of relationship with her, and he won’t have it with me.”

“That you wanted something like that, too?” The Mistress finished for her.

“Very much.”

Robert groaned.

“None of that.” The Mistress waved her hand at him in a scolding. “The Mistress is talking to the sub in the room right now. You just sit there and look pretty. Cara, why do you want that kind of relationship? Just curiosity?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean, yes I’m curious. I’ve never done it before. But I’ve had fantasies about it since I was a teenager and found my mom’s stash of smut.”

“God, I love smut. Let me guess...The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy?”

Cara’s mouth fell open just slightly. “Yes! How did you—”

“Seriously, I should start sending a cut of my checks to Anne Rice. I owe that woman half my clients. But come on now. Surely it’s more than that.”

Cara exhaled heavily and crossed her arms over her chest.