Read The Word Master Online

Authors: Jason Luke

The Word Master (9 page)

Chapter 13.

 

I went into the producer’s booth. Grover was leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the desk, ankles crossed casually. He had the phone to his ear, talking quietly. I stood in the threshold of the doorway for a moment, listening. The conversation sounded private. He made a grunting sound and then scraped his fingers through his hair. I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me, loud enough for him to hear the sound.

Grover’s head spun round and he gave me an awkward sheepish look. He sat upright, muttered into the phone and hung up. He turned in his chair, his expression guilty.

“Hey, man!” he said with too much enthusiasm to possibly be genuine. “Great program. Really dug the whole submissive club thing. That was gold.”

I stared at him for a moment, and then my gaze flicked past him to the bank of monitors that listed incoming calls. The screens were full.

My eyes came back to Grover’s. “April was helping me with the segment,” I said in a careful voice. “She was acting out the instructions I was giving on-air to make sure the whole scene would be realistic and detailed for the listeners. You, standing against the booth window like a lecherous deviant, didn’t help.”

I paused for an instant and my expression became menacing. Grover’s mouth opened and he tried to form a smile but the expression wouldn’t take hold and slipped nervously off his lips.

“If you ever do it again, I’ll fucking gut you.” I said.

The color drained from the man’s face. His eyes filled with skittering shock and then became shadowed. He bobbed his head and licked his lips. I could see his Adams apple working in his throat.

“It was just a joke,” his voice was reedy.

“I’m not laughing.”

Grover nodded. “No,” he said. “No, you’re not…”

Chapter 14.

 

April came back from the ladies’ room after about ten minutes. I was waiting for her in the studio. She dropped her handbag beside the desk and fell into her chair. She glanced up at the clock, made a mental calculation, then skimmed her eyes across the glowing monitors. She seemed satisfied. There was still music playing, and a couple more songs still cued. She glanced at me, and her expression suggested she had something she wanted to say – words she had been rehearsing.

She leaned forward earnestly, clasped her hands together and set them on the desktop.

I waited.

“You’re very good,” she said like it was a grudging admission. “Besides the looks and the voice… you’re actually very good, and I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s the words you use, or the way you say them… but I recognize that every time you open your mouth there is a raw sexuality and power that radiates from you, Jericho. It’s a control – a presence…” her voice trailed off as though she had run out of her prepared speech and was now unsure how to proceed. She flapped her hands and just looked at me.

“Thanks,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t handle compliments well. They made me feel awkward. I shrugged off her praise, but April seemed not to have heard me. She went on as though I hadn’t spoken.

“I was angry with you tonight – that segment was humiliating… for a few minutes.”

“And then…?”

Her lips twisted into a knowing smile that was a reflection of irony rather than humor. “Then I started getting into it,” she admitted. “Once I concentrated on your voice and your instructions, everything else seemed to slip away. I found myself connecting to something deep within me that I hadn’t known existed before tonight – some feminine instinct, maybe,” she shook her head like it made no logical sense. “Some secret part of me was awakened.”

I nodded to encourage her. April had more that she needed to say.

“I want to learn and discover more,” she said in a confessional rush of words. “But I don’t want you to misunderstand… I’m not enamored with you. I’m gay, Jericho, and not even a man like you is going to change that. But I also recognize the fact that I need to explore this submissive part of me… so I can share it with my partner.”

I kept my face impassive. I sensed this was important to April and I didn’t want to do anything that might make her withdraw, or reconsider what she was feeling.

“That sounds fine,” I said calmly. “How do you want to proceed?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I am willing to continue being your model for the sub-club segments,” she said. “And I’d like you to answer the questions that I am going to have.”

I smiled warmly. “You have a deal.”

April seemed to visibly relax. The tension went from her shoulders and her expression lightened in relief. She let out a long breath and finally gave me an impish smile.

“Can a woman who wants to be dominant learn what you have learned?”

“Sure,” I said. “In fact I believe it would probably be easier for your partner to learn domination than it would be for a man. Women are much more intuitive. I tend to think your lady would have a far better idea of how to get you to the edge of orgasm and hold you there. And I’d guess she would be far better equipped to encourage your journey towards sexual submission than any random male Master you might seek out.”

April seemed satisfied with my answer. She smiled.

“How do you think your partner will react to the idea of you learning these submissive positions and techniques from me?” I asked. “She won’t feel threatened?”

April shook her head. “No,” she said. “She will understand my reasoning, and we have a strong bond of trust. She will realize that I’m doing this for me, and for us – not for you.” She paused for a moment, as if playing back the words she had just said. Then she smiled again. “I mean that in the nicest possible way!”

“Of course,” I laughed for the first time. “No offense taken. I’ll be grateful for your help.”

In that instant, something changed in our relationship. It might have been a clearer understanding, or some shared intimacy. I felt it in the way April looked at me, and in the set of her body. A barrier had come down.

We were friends.

She tapped at the keyboard for a few moments and then glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. There was a soft, happy smile on her lips. She saw I was watching her.

“What?” she touched at her hair.

“I was just wondering if you were going to wear lingerie for the sub-club segment on tomorrow night’s show.”

She shrugged. “Would it help me learn to be more submissive?”

“It wouldn’t hurt.”

“Would it help you?”

“It wouldn’t hurt – from a purely professional point of view, of course,” I added in hasty humor.

April chuckled. “You’ll have to wait and see,” she said in a soft teasing breath, her eyes filling with mischievous promise.

Quite suddenly Grover’s voice came through the speaker, his tone subdued and drained of its usual color. I guessed he was still stinging from the chat we had.

“That chick you are waiting for has just called in,” he said simply. “Line fourteen.”

April and I exchanged glances. I nodded.

She pressed a button on the desk. “Put her through, Grover.” She glanced at her monitor and frowned. “I’ll block in some more music,” she said.

I held up a warning finger. “I don’t want this recorded,” I explained, “and I don’t want it ever going to air.”

April inclined her head to show she understood. She tapped a few more keys and then announced, “You’re off the grid – and she’s on the line right now…”

Chapter 15.

 

I paused for a moment and opened another mental box.

Guys are like that – we have boxes inside our heads. It’s why we can’t multi-task. We only ever open one box at a time, and the lid is always tightly closed before we reach for a new box to open.

Compartmentalizing.

One of the boxes in a man’s head isn’t filled with work responsibilities, or personal interests, or family… it’s entirely empty. An empty box! We open it when we want to think of nothing at all… something that is impossible for a woman to do. Women are very different. They have all their boxes open at the same time. Family thoughts merge into work issues, and that spills into another box for friends…

As a species, guys are simpler.

I closed the box for friends that I had placed April into and opened the box that read,
‘Danger!’

“Hello, Sondra, thanks for calling in to the show,” I said carefully.

Her voice was sultry, and almost knowing. It was as if she sensed I was wary. There was a kind of smugness to her tone – the voice of a woman who knew a secret, and wanted me to know that she knew.

“Thanks for taking my call, Jericho. Am I on the air?”

“No,” I said. “We don’t play live calls.”

“Oh? Why not?”

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Because we never know what a caller is going to say,” I explained. “Every call is recorded and the best ones are played back on air.”

There was an instant of hesitation, then her voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “Are you going to broadcast this call?”

The question hung between us. I saw April glance at me – and then look quickly back at her computer. She could hear the conversation. Grover had it relayed through the overhead speaker.

“No,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because you want to talk to me, you don’t want to talk about you.”

There was another pause while she interpreted my words. When she spoke again I picked up a trace of humor in her voice. “I do want to talk about you,” she purred. “I’d like to know when you are going to meet me.”

“I never said I would…” I reminded her.

“You will.”

This time the delay was longer. I listened closely. I could hear soft rustling sounds down the line and I wondered if she was laying on her bed and what she was wearing.

Was she touching herself?

Was she slowly pleasuring her pussy with her fingers – edging herself closer to orgasm?

Was I being drawn in to her fantasy by having this conversation with her?

“What makes you so sure?”

Sondra laughed then – a delightful sound like the tinkle of crystal glass.

“You have no choice, Jericho!”

“Really?” I frowned. April shot me another glance, this one a measure of her concern. Sondra had stopped sounding mysterious and suddenly started sounding more like a stalker. “Why do you say that?”

Sondra huffed into the phone, like the verbal lunge and parry was becoming tiresome. “Because if you don’t I will call your radio show every night.”

I shook my head. “That will do no good, Sondra,” I tried to keep my voice reasonable. “We can block calls.”

The laugh came back – laced with a hint of bitterness. “Do you think I only have one phone, Jericho? You can’t block every call – it’s a talkback radio show.”

She had a point.

I looked across the desk. April stared back. Her eyes were wide, her expression bewildered. She shrugged her shoulders helplessly, and then silently mouthed the words, “She’s right.”

I nodded and let out a long breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding.

“Okay,” I capitulated. “I will meet you – but it will be in a public place of my choosing, Sondra, and it’s a conversation, nothing more. I agree to meet you, but you have to agree to stop these phone calls. No more calls to the show, no more calls to me. Once we meet, it’s over. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she said. “Unless you want to continue seeing me, I promise never to call or bother you again after we have dinner together.”

“Dinner?”

“Why not?” Sondra’s voice was alive and animated now, bubbling with her enthusiasm, but still retaining the smoky sultry rasp.

I thought about the idea for just an instant. “Okay. Dinner. Saturday night at a local restaurant.”

“Saturday night?”

“Yes,” I said. I had compromised as much as I was ever going to. “Not before then. I have this radio show every week night.”

“We could meet before your show…”

“No. Saturday night. Take it or leave it.”

She hesitated like she was considering the offer, but I knew she wasn’t. She was playing games.

“Okay,” she sighed at last. “I guess I can wait until then. Do you want me to choose the restaurant… since you’re new in town?”

I felt the shock of her words jump down my nerves and jerk them tight.
“How did you know that?”
I hissed the accusation. “How do you know I haven’t lived in Boston all my life?”

Sondra went quiet on the phone and behind my eyes flashed a mental image of young Cindy being discovered in the bathroom with Grover – that sense of sudden horrified guilt she must have felt at being caught out. I pictured her young face flushing with angry color as she stammered to explain.

“Well…? Do I know you?”

“Maybe,” Sondra gathered her poise, but I sensed her mood had changed decidedly. She was no longer keen to talk. She wanted to end the conversation – quickly. “You’ll have to wait until Saturday night to find out,” she said. “Meet me at the
‘Victorian’
Restaurant on Newbury Street at seven o’clock.”

The line went dead.

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