1 Chapter 1
1
Wednesday evening, last week of September
Jake Cohen bundled up against the brisk autumn wind. It was his favorite time of the year. Too bad he had no one to share it with. All of his friends, one by one, had found their sub and Jake, although he looked at every new crop, hadn’t. He decided to do the unthinkable—he was going to ask the sub club for help.
He didn’t look forward to the flack he was going to catch from his friends, but damn it, he was lonely and they all had a sub of their own, except him. With the changes he was contemplating for his life, now was the time to find someone. The sub club had performed miracles with the other recalcitrant Doms; he should be easy. He actually wanted a sub to love and their help to find him.
Earlier that day, he called Reed and asked him if he could speak to Jim. Naturally, Reed wanted to know why.
“What earthly reason do you need to speak to my Jim outside of the club?” Reed’s question left him stammering.
“I want Jim and the sub club’s help to find me a sub I can love,” Jake told Reed in a mumbled undertone, hoping Reed didn’t quite hear him.
“You mean you actually want them to meddle in your affairs,” Reed said, appalled. “You don’t need their dubious brand of interference, trust me on this. And worse, if you fuck up, we’ll be the ones that pay the price.”
“I think I do, want them to meddle that is. Please, be a friend. Let me ask Jim and the rest of them to give it a shot. I can’t be any worse off than I was before. After all it was all of you assholes, with the notable exception of Bear, that gave your subs such hard times before commitment. The sub club’s interference had nothing to do with your troubles. I don’t want to give anyone a hard time. I want to commit. I’m sick of being alone.”
“How can you possibly say you’re alone? You have all of us and there are new crops of subs that come into the club every month.” He could hear Reed’s incredulity over the phone.
“I play, you know I play. However, I haven’t found someone that I want to come home to at night and I think that maybe I’m missing something or not doing something right. Anyway, their record is good, seven for seven love matches. Maybe a little of the other Doms’ luck will rub off on me.”
“If you do this, the other Doms may not forgive you. The subs will be so smug they’ll be earning strokes for a month.”
“It was okay when I still had Tom but now he’s hitched. I never would have picked a homeless guy for an ex-cop, but the subs worked whatever voodoo they do and it all turned out hearts and flowers, or as much hearts and flowers as a Dom/sub arrangement can be. You all love your subs and they adore you. I want that for myself.”
“Okay, buddy, you have my permission to try, but don’t complain when you don’t like the consequences. You’re also going to have to get the other Doms to agree not to give out strokes to their subs for plotting, because this wasn’t the subs’ idea, it’s yours.” Reed chuckled.
* * * *
As soon as Reed got off the phone, he speed dialed Bear. “You won’t believe what Jake is going to do…”
* * * *
Davey Howell didn’t want to pick pockets for a living. A year ago he’d had a job, a good one. He had been a paralegal to Bill Danvers, senior partner at the law offices of Danvers, Blake, & Sampson. When Mr. Danvers went on a year’s sabbatical, the other two partners had transferred their dislike for the senior partner to Davey. He hadn’t been able to do anything right. He’d been at that office for five years, and they’d fired him, summarily. Now he was twenty-five and in competition with all the paralegals that just graduated from school.
The fact that Davey was fired didn’t look good on his resume and his old boss, Bill Danvers, was gone with his wife for a cruise around the world for a year. He couldn’t get a hold of him for another three months.
His unemployment insurance had run out, he’d depleted his 401K and he was out of options. His resume was papered across the ‘net, he’d called every recruiter in New York and no one would hire him without a reference. He went to the jobs counselor at the unemployment office.
