Masquerades and Charades, page 17
"Hey," she murmured, her smile wobbly but holding.
That smile gave him the first real bit of hope in hours.
He smiled back. "Hey. Anyone hungry?"
Madison decided to stay in the guest room instead of the hotel. She just didn't feel right about leaving her mother alone yet, even if her father's death hadn't been a surprise for her mother.
Connor understood. But he also didn't want to leave her. And he knew she wouldn't feel right sleeping with him and Jamie in her parents' guest bed after how their last visit had ended.
Which was how Jamie and he ended up leaving without Madison that evening.
"I'm fine, I promise," she murmured, curled up barefooted on the couch with her mother while they channel surfed for something to watch together. Her mother had seemed truly thrilled with the idea of a girls' sleepover-type of evening, probably desperate for something to take her mind off the day coming for them all tomorrow.
Or maybe desperate to avoid a suddenly empty bed.
They arranged to bring all of Madison's stuff with them in the morning hours before the funeral so she'd have plenty of time to get ready. And then they dragged themselves away.
They didn't even look at the hotel bar on the way through the lobby. They headed straight for their hotel room and got ready for bed.
Connor briefly thought about seeing if Jamie was in the mood to play a little before sleep. But the truth was, Madison's and her mother's sadness was contagious, and he wasn't sure he could get hard even if he tried. So he settled for kissing Jamie goodnight. Then they settled in for a long night of tossing and turning.
***
Madison
The next morning turned out to be a flurry of activity, punctuated by random moments of too little to do and too much time to think. As long as she stayed busy helping her mother accept dishes of food from friends, she was fine. It was almost like helping her mother prep for a dinner party, if she didn't think about what it was all for.
But then she'd find herself standing there, waiting for something else to do while her mother spoke to friends that Madison barely knew or had never met, and suddenly she'd have to fight the tears again.
The guys showed up in plenty of time thankfully. She was grateful they showed up looking perfect in their suits, cleanly shaven, shoes shined. They'd even texted ahead of time to ask if her mother was allergic to colognes too before using their aftershave.
She loved them so much for that little bit of thoughtfulness.
They also were sweet enough to drive her and her mother to the church for the service. Unfortunately, Madison didn't have much time to get to hang onto that feeling of love, because then it was time to go inside and see the open casket.
And it suddenly became horribly real.
She took one look at her father's body and had to rush off to the nearest bathroom to hide in a stall and sob into a handful of toilet paper to muffle herself. She didn't want to be that drama queen at the funeral who cried so much and so loudly that everyone paid attention to her instead of the service and the point for being there. She refused to be that girl.
But she couldn't help but cry now. It was one thing to know your father was dangerously sick for years, and another to see him actually dead and gone.
She could never go back and change their last parting, never apologize to him, never hug him one last time.
By the time she managed to get herself back under control, it had been several minutes and she could hear the low murmur of a lot of gathered voices outside in the main area of the church. She briefly debated trying to repair her makeup then decided to forget about it. She'd purposely not worn any eye makeup today, knowing how it wouldn't likely stay in place. And if someone here had a problem with her red eyes and nose, well, they could get over it.
She brought an extra handful of wadded up toilet paper in her hand, knowing she'd need something for her drippy nose again soon, and walked back into the church, which was now surprisingly pretty well filled up on the ground floor's central pews. She spotted her mother on the front row…she'd saved a big space beside her for Madison and was talking to more well-wishers. But where were Jamie and Connor?
Then she spotted them seated in a pew together way towards the back.
Frowning, she circled around to the center aisle and stopped by them. "Hey, what are you two doing way back here?"
Jamie shrugged, looking confused but accepting of the situation.
Connor looked up at her steadily. "We thought you'd want to sit with your mother up front."
"I do. On the family pew. Which is where you two should be too."
Connor stood up, Jamie a second behind him.
She gave them a confused smile. "Don't you two know? You're my family now, every bit as much as my mother is." She stepped aside to give them room, and they exited the pew.
She moved to stand between them, took a deep breath, and laced her hands in the crook of their nearest bent elbows.
They walked together down the aisle towards the front pew, where they sat beside her mother.
Who didn't even bat an eyelash at seeing her daughter so publicly walk around with not one but two men on her arms.
"You sure your dad would be okay with this?" Jamie leaned over to whisper in her ear just before the service started.
Madison sighed and tried not to look at her father's body in the open casket. "I once heard someone say something like funerals are for the living." She hesitated then added, "And if he were alive, he would just have to get over the three of us being together anyway."
She squeezed both their upper arms, then slid her hands down to lace her fingers with theirs. And didn't give a damn who saw.
Because as long as they were together, she was starting to think she could get through anything.
CHAPTER 10
Four Months Later…
Madison stepped into the blinding light, blinking fast but trying hard not to squint as they'd practiced. She hit her pose center stage, cracking the whip in the air before coiling it around her left leg.
Behind her, Connor and Jamie crawled on stage, stopping at her feet to rub their hands slowly up her legs over her skirt.
"You boys have been very naughty," she said, her voice amplified by the small earpiece microphone against her cheek. She smiled, reaching down with her free hand to grab Jamie's chin and lift it until his gaze snapped to hers. She saw him fight a smile.
"You know what happens to boys who refuse to be quiet in the library? They get…punished." She made a show of pulling Jamie up to his feet with just her hand on his chin, then pushing on his shoulder to spin him away. He kept spinning over to an empty bookcase they'd set up earlier on the stage. But this bookcase was special. It had lots of lovely metal eye hooks up high and inside the shelves to tie things to. Or in this case, two men.
She turned and cracked her whip in Connor's direction, and he crawled over to her and Jamie.
"Tie him up well, and I might go easy on your punishment," she said.
He waited until he was standing with his back to the stage and tying up Jamie to one side of the bookcase before flashing her an encouraging grin that made things inside her tighten deliciously.
When he was done, she hooked a finger in the collar's ring around Connor's throat then led him around the bookcase. She pushed his hands into the cuffs already attached there and fastened them, then fastened the waiting ankle cuffs around his leather clad legs.
Then she stepped back, dropped the whip, and picked up a flogger, first dragging it slowly up and down Connor's gorgeous chest and abs, then popping him with it.
He groaned and said, "But Mistress, I thought you said you'd go easy on me if I helped you."
She gave her best cruel laugh, tilting her head back. "I lied! You're mine now, and I'm never letting you go again."
Then she gave the specially made bookcase's end a hard shove, and it began to slowly spin. As it spun, she took turns flogging first one lover, then the other, earning a few muffled "oohs" and "ahhs" from the audience.
But honestly, she was so into the performance, and so surprised that she was so into it, that she could hardly focus on the audience's reaction.
All she could see were the men she loved, who loved her back unconditionally, whether she played the Domme or not.
Who had spent countless hours loving her, holding her and each other, in sleep and in play.
Who had managed to talk her into training for tonight's floor show performance.
And because she loved them, because they made her so happy and she seemed to make them equally happy in return, she'd agreed to give it a go, in addition to returning to her usual private client sessions.
And with their help, she'd found her way again. Madison had discovered that, once and for all, she wasn't just a bully Domme.
She'd learned, with their patience and seemingly endless love, how to become a loving Domme.
And that this was who she really was deep down inside.
Thanks to Connor and Jamie, she'd learned how to be herself, to open herself up to exploring her fantasies within the BDSM world…
One of which they were acting out right now, not just for the audience's benefit, but for hers and her lovers' as well.
And she couldn't wait to discover with them what additional thrills the future held.
THE END
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Masquerades and Charades
MMF Bisexual Menage Romance
© 2017
Disclaimer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.
This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).
Maxene Novak, Masquerades and Charades
