Blake West sat on the balcony of his favorite bar, relaxing after a long day's work. His tie had been loosened and the first couple buttons of his thick linen business shirt had been undone. His hair, dark and with a tendency to tight curls, threatened to fall into his deep green eyes. He brushed it out of the way impatiently as he sipped at his espresso. The quick unfurrowing of his brow suggested that he found the brew to his tastes. With a small sigh of relief he leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers over his midsection. The summer had tanned his skin a deep Mediterranean olive tone, and his skin was pleasantly dark in contrast to the white shirt

"So you're done with Sarah?" His friend and partner in crime, Adrian gave him a sympathetic look as he drew on his cigarette. Adrian was a slight man with thinning blond hair and keen features. Unkind persons might have described his eyes as 'beady', but he missed nothing. It had been Adrian who had first noticed the tensions in Blake's previous relationship, long before Blake himself had seen the problems that inevitably destroyed it.

"Yeah," Blake nodded and took a longer drink, feeling the rough blend igniting his senses almost immediately. "She just needed too much. She needed to be micromanaged. Could barely get up in the morning without me."

"Micromanaged, eh?" A far away look established itself on Adrian's face.

Blake smirked, the thin creases around his eyes becoming deeper as he smiled. "Yeah, she'd be your dream girl. Except she doesn't do bondage."

The light went out of Adrian's expression as quickly as it had gone on. "Never mind then."

Blake grinned wider still. Bondage might be a hard limit for some subs, but it was a must have for Adrian. Fortunately for him, rope tops were still in high demand. He wasn't the best looking guy on the block but the man couldn't walk into a club without being besieged by willing bottoms.

"I just want a woman with a bit of back bone," Blake mused.

"Someone with a back bone who will also let you paint her ass red?" It was Adrian's turn to grin now.

"Precisely," Blake nodded. "She can be bad if she wants, but she'll take her medicine when I decide it's necessary."

"Careful what you wish for," Adrian cautioned him, looking his watch. "What you're describing sounds dangerously like a brat."

Cocking his head to the side, Blake considered the possibility of a brat. "What's so wrong with brats?"

"Oh god, where do I begin?" Adrian drummed his fingers on the table as he thought. "Well for starters, they hardly ever know what they want. They never look at themselves, they're always looking for someone else to fix them. And they're selfish. It's all about them, what they want – even though they don't know what it is they actually want. They'll brat you until you give them what they deserve and then they'll sulk because they didn't like it. Give me a submissive any day."

"They can't all be that bad surely?" Blake said as nightmarish visions of endless pouting and complaining danced through his head.

"A brat is a submissive who doesn't know she's submissive yet," Adrian declared self importantly.

Blake tried to follow Adrian's circular logic. "So you don't want brats, you'd rather a submissive, but a brat is a submissive?"

"Yes. But a larval submissive. A submissive caterpillar." Adrian seemed particularly pleased with his analogy. "And some of them are poisonous," he added as an afterthought.

"God you talk some rot," Blake snorted with laughter.

"You'll see, young padwan," Adrian smiled, checking his watch. "Let's get going. Maybe you'll get lucky tonight."

"Maybe," Blake stretched, feeling much better. It was a Friday and they were heading off to their usual haunt, Kanes, a semi-public club that catered to numerous fetishes. The last few months had been barren of any kind of kinky play, and he was ready to remedy that problem as quickly as possible.

The club was quiet when they arrived, though a steady low hum of activity suggested that the regulars were already at play. The moment they walked in the door, Adrian was approached by a couple looking for some advice and he was already reaching for the rope. Blake snorted to himself. It was a pity that rope work wasn't really his thing. He was mildly curious about it, but there was little point in being curious with nobody to play with.

He hung out by the alcohol free bar for a few minutes, letting his eyes adjust to the low levels of light in the place. It was dimly lit, which made everything feel more intimate, and gave people a feeling of privacy even when playing right out in public.

Kanes boasted several rooms to play in. The social area in which he found himself was largely devoid of play, but there was a range of implements for sale, leather crops, paddles and cuffs laid out waiting for new owners. He perused them casually, but nothing caught his eye. He preferred using his hand anyway, he liked feeling the increasingly hot flesh under his palm. He even liked the tingling pain he got in his palm after imparting a good series of hard swats to a deserving behind. Hand spanking was tactile and wonderful, even if it barely counted as play to many of the submissive women who frequented the club.

Blake was not a regular player, though he did enjoy the scene community. There were some very interesting people to be met in this subterranean gathering place. He said his hellos to the tops that were in residence, experienced men who had been around the block several times and could do things with whips and chains that defied belief.

Letting his attention wander from the conversation around him, he let his gaze drift around the room. Almost immediately, a young woman took his eye. She was a good deal younger than him, she looked to be in her mid twenties or so. He figured he probably had a decade on her, but the age difference only served to pique his interest.

"Who's she?" He leaned over and asked one of the other tops. Terry was an old hand in the scene. He'd seen more submissives than most people had hot dinners and Blake usually trusted his judgment. Old dogs might be difficult to teach new tricks, but what they knew, they knew damn well.

Terry looked over in the direction Blake pointed in and shook his head immediately. "Oh don't even bother with her."

Blake was disappointed. "Why not?"

"She's a pain in the ass." Terry shook his head. "And not in a good way," he added as he saw Blake's expression of interest.

"Is she a bunny boiler?"

"No, she's got her head screwed on straight enough as far as I can tell."

Blake looked over at the woman again. He couldn't see what the problem was, she was a neat little package, a nice ass, good legs and a decent rack to boot. Her hair was a little short for his tastes, but the dark bob suited her. Combined with the short skirt and long boots she was wearing, she put him in mind of a 60's mod girl.

"Seriously kid, I'm warning you, you'll regret it," Terry's wrinkles formed shapes of rampant objection around his once handsome features. "She damn near got herself thrown out of here last week."

Blake's brows went up in surprise. It was a rare occurrence for someone to get themselves into so much trouble that they were asked to leave. It was even rarer that the someone in question was a woman. "What for?"

Terry shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. "Antagonizing others. She's a mouthy little witch. She managed to get herself on Antonia's bad side. She's not particularly welcome here, not that she cares."

Terry's tirade only had the effect of piquing Blake's interest further. Mouthy, was she? He could do mouthy. "What's her name then?"

By this time, the young woman was looking over at them, clearly quite well aware that she was the topic of their conversation. She didn't seem overly perturbed or pleased by that fact, but her clear gaze was interested in the very least.

"Calls herself Ace, don't know her real name, don't care to know her real name." Terry turned away, clearly unwilling to openly pay attention to her. "Ace of Brats, that's what she is," he added with a derisive snort.

"Hm." Blake thought to himself, mulling the information over. He had been saying he wanted a more outgoing submissive. Sarah would never have gotten kicked out of anything, she would rather have disappeared into the earth than open her mouth and speak out of turn. He knew the DM Terry was talking about, Antonia was not one of his favorite people. The fact that Ace had stood up to her was actually rather attractive.

"Cover me, I'm going in," he said, clapping Terry on the shoulder. Terry could only shake his head and groan at the folly of youthful dominance.

Blake approached Ace confidently. He had good reason to be confident. A lifetime of experience had taught him that not many women would turn him down, not at the outset anyway. He'd been told on more than one occasion that he had a gorgeous smile, and the way submissive types tended to melt in front of him was enough to give him a perpetual ego boost.

When he arrived at her table she was sitting by herself, looking at a distant scene with a slight sneer on her face. In the next room, two women were playing. The submissive was tied across a horse, bent almost double, her pert ass up nice and high. The dominant woman was busy striping her ass quite efficiently and enthusiastically with a flogger. Blake paused for a moment to admire the way the submissive's cheeks jiggled with every stroke. Glancing back towards Ace, he wondered why she was so scornful of the scene. There was no time like the present to find out. "Hey," he smiled, stepping up beside her.

"Hi," she immediately returned his smile. That was a promising sign. When she wasn't sneering, she really was quite attractive, in a cute way.

"Blake West," he said, extending his hand. She took it and shook it with a firm grip.

"Ace Jones," she replied.

Blake smiled charmingly. "I like it, but it's not your real name, I presume?" It was something of a crashing offense to go around asking people their real names at a scene gathering, but he got the feeling that Ace wasn't terribly big on protocol.

"Why would you presume that?" she said, a slight frown on her face.

"It's an interesting name. If it is your real name, your parents must have been interesting people." He leaned up against the table, making himself comfortable.

"I suppose," she said. Her eyes flicked away from him back to the scene she'd been watching. She was already losing interest, or at least feigning as if she was losing interest anyway.

"It's a nice night, isn't it?" He flashed his brilliant white smile as he continued to make small talk to break the ice.

"It is," she nodded. He liked the way her short dark bob bounced when she moved her head. It was probably a cut designed to make her look hard nosed and business like. In this environment it made her look as if she'd fallen down a rabbit hole and didn't know how to return to reality. Pleasant head bobbing aside however, the two word answers weren't really cutting it for Blake. Feeling that his efforts at polite conversation were failing, he decided it was time to move the conversation along to topics that would interest them both much more deeply. "So my dear, what are you into?"

Ace's smile faded immediately and a distinctly hostile look came into her eyes. "What kind of fucking question is that?"

Taken aback by the vehemence of her reply, Blake frowned. "A logical question for a kink club?"

She scowled at him furiously, screwing up her face in a most unattractive way. "Why the fuck would I tell a total stranger what I'm into?"

Blake paused for a moment, letting his immediate irritation settle. She had a hell of a temper, that was for sure. Already he'd found something to work on, not to mention pretty strong motivation to have her over his lap. He ignored her rude question and asked one of his own. "Why would you come into a club like this if you weren't looking for someone to take you in hand?"

Ace sighed and rolled her eyes. "I'm not looking to be 'taken in hand'," she made dramatic quote signs in the air with bent fingers. "I'm looking for a good time."

The smile returned to Blake's face. A good time. He could go for a good time, but he'd have to deal with her attitude first. "A good time with a mind reader, I suppose," he said, keeping his tone light.

She looked at him with only slightly less derision. "What do you mean?"

He leaned against the table, looking over at the striped bottom in the mid-distance, then back at her. "You take such violent objection to being asked what you're into, whoever you end up with is going to have to be pretty damn good at mind reading."

Shaking her glossy hair, Ace scowled. "When I meet the right person, it'll click. I won't have to answer a barrage of inane questions."

Ah, there it was. The innocent naivety behind the sophisticated facade. She probably thought she was better than the other submissives, better than the woman being spanked by her Mistress, but she was just as caught up in romantic nonsense as every other submissive, possibly more so.

"What are you looking so smug about?" It was her turn to ask the question.

He made sure that he caught her eye and kept it as he answered her. "You're an inexperienced little girl with an attitude. It will be interesting to see how long you can keep that up once someone has you pinned down with your bottom bright red, your legs spread for the spanking and everything... and I do mean everything you have on display." He spoke crudely on purpose. He wanted to shock her. She was sitting there so self possessed, waiting for an imaginary Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet. She didn't need a prince, she needed a villain to teach her a damn good lesson.

Her reaction was not what he had expected. He'd expected blushing and stammering, maybe an attempted slap in the face, or perhaps a horrified quick exit. Instead all he got back was a smirk. "I imagine I'd handle it a damn sight better than you would," she said, her eye contact not wavering for a moment.

Blake was impressed. Most of the women he knew would have been staring themselves into the floor by this point. Usually a submissive woman gave submissive cues very quickly. Ace wasn't playing that game though, she didn't seem even slightly rattled by his description. He smiled as he responded. "It's not a position I'm likely to find myself in. I don't bottom."

Ace's brow raised slightly "And what makes you think I do?"

Now she was playing with him. He could see it in her eyes. Oh, she wanted him to believe her, but there was a mischievous quirk to her lips that betrayed her. She might not be your typical soft, blushing submissive, but she was definitely one who belonged on the receiving end of things.

"It's written all over you, darling."

"Is it now?" Her smile still lingered, playing about the edges of her mouth. In spite of her apparent confidence he could see a glimmer of uncertainty in her eyes, perhaps even hope.

"Oh yes," he said, speaking quite seriously. "It's obvious, for instance, that you're into spanking."

"Fuck off," she laughed, shaking her head. "What makes you say that?"

There it was in her eyes, stronger now, the hopeful interest. The pieces were falling into place thick and fast. In spite of her attitude and contrary insistence on not answering questions, she was telling him what he wanted to know. "You can't take your eyes off that girl getting her ass spanked over there," he gestured towards the two women, watching with enjoyment as a faint blush appeared on Ace's cheeks.

"Maybe I just like pussy," she replied bluntly.

"Perhaps," he acknowledged the possibility. "But if you liked pussy, you wouldn't be doing the rounds, giving everybody shit, trying to see who is going to grab you and give you the spanking you deserve."

Several expressions chased one another across her cute face. He had her right where he wanted her, she was off balance and she knew that he had her figured out. "It's not the best idea," he continued. "You're liable to make more enemies than friends that way, people don't like to be manipulated, and in this scene, they see that shit coming a mile away."

He was telling her off, and she wasn't liking it, not one bit. He could see her shutting down right in front of him. Her expression became careful and closed. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said stiffly.

"Sure you do. We both know you do." She was scowling, but he kept steady eye contact, letting her know that her moods didn't scare him. She could be as sulky as she liked, but he wasn't going to go until he'd finished saying what he had to say.

"Listen, I am who I am. Not everyone likes who I am. Not everyone can handle me."

He snorted derisively as she took refuge in the old 'I'm too much for you to handle,' excuse used by almost every poorly mannered submissive who has yet to find their place. "Little girl, you're not all that hard to handle. Being an ill mannered brat doesn't make you difficult, it makes you spoiled."

"For fuck's sake," Ace exclaimed, starting to lose her temper. "Are you done lecturing me yet? Is that your kink, going up to total strangers and telling them off?"

"No," he smiled a slow smile. "My kink is taking bad girls and spanking them red. As for lecturing, I haven't even begun to lecture you."

A slight redness began to spread over her cheeks. Blake held his breath as it deepened and her hips began to sway back and forth where she sat. There it was. She was blushing and squirming and he knew he'd won. She wouldn't admit it yet, but he had her. A dynamic had been established and she was interested. She was more than interested. If he'd turned around that moment and walked out of the place she would probably have followed him. Her little bad girl act was nothing more than a facade hiding the fact that she wanted what so many other submissive women wanted, somebody to take her in hand.

Now that he had elicited his first submissive response from her, he changed tack. There would be plenty of time to take her down a peg or two and teach her how to behave herself. Now it was time to get to know her better. "I'd like to take you to dinner," he smiled. "Would you do me the honor?"

"Now?" He could see that she was slightly flustered by the speed at which things were going, but that was the way he wanted it. He wanted her to be swept up and surrender to his plans.

"Yes, now." He checked his watch. "It's not your bed time yet."

She laughed at the mention of bed time. "I really don't do that infantile stuff," she said, placing her hand on his arm.

"Is that so?" He nodded, acknowledging her, though he really doubted that she had any idea 'what she did'. She was so green as a bottom she barely knew her ass from her elbow. He glanced down at her hand, slightly impressed that she had been the first to bridge the physical gap between them. She might be a spoiled brat, but she could clearly be forward, perhaps even dominant when she wanted to be. She was a complex woman and he found her intriguing in spite of her glaringly obvious shortcomings.