Submissives of Catan

Welcome, Geek Pride readers! Especially any boardgame geeks.

This story talks about BDSM, but don't worry -- it's just a group of friends indulging in dirty talk and silly chat while playing a board game, a bit of nudity, and our narrator going down on her fiancé, resulting in some truly terrible jokes. The spanking is mild; the puns cruel and tortuous. You have been warned.

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Settlers of Catan is a modern classic board game: you have to trade resources with other players in order to build settlements (1 point) and cities (2 points) and buy special cards, to get the number of points required to win. There's some luck of the dice, but mostly skill, involved.

Normally people merely trade a wood card for a rock card, or a wheat for one or two sheep -- but there's no rule stopping you making trades more interesting in a cut-throat game...

Cards from Settlers, and its expansions Seafarers and Cities & Knights of Catan, and names of other board games, are in italics.

"Hallo, Sarah! Make yourself at home. Tea? How's your Duncan?" My friend Cat, an enthusiastic bounce of curly chestnut hair and freckles, greeted me. "It'll be good to see him again. Especially if we get to see him... disciplining you properly!"

Since I'd got to know my old college mate Jake and his wife Cat much better over the last year, they'd got to know my fiancé Duncan well, too. By 'better', I mean Cat had spotted me doing a demo at a fetish event, and introduced me to her submissive boy. I'd known Jake for ten years, yet never guessed that about him! But then I didn't let on to all and sundry about my kinky habits either -- being a domme, mostly, but also submitting, to the right person.

Duncan, when not horribly stressed and needing a break himself from being in control, was definitely a right person.

Thing was, Jake and Cat had only seen me as a domme, if not being my mainstream respectable self. There was something about the contrast between my dominance that they knew about, and me being an obedient sub, that had me embarrassed as all hell.

Which was, of course, why Cat wanted to see it.

Cat said she wouldn't mind Jake 'taking me in hand', possibly joining in herself, if Duncan didn't mind. I'd muttered, "That might be an issue..."

It really wouldn't be. Dunc merrily showed off my body at fetish clubs, inviting other people to grope or pleasure me. In the anonymity of a club, I loved being used as a sex object for strangers.

Becoming a sex toy for two good friends of mine? My face went red and hot just thinking about it...

The doorbell went. I saw a familiar warm brown face distorted by the textured glass in the door. I let Duncan in, pulling him into a big kiss, reaching up above my head to run my fingers through his long black hair.

"Hey, lovey. How's it going? he enquired, groping my arse. Duncan smoothed down his ruffled hair, always mindful of his appearance.

"Good! You've not been here before, right, love?" Cat and Jake's small house was across London from ours. "Jake, get him a drink, would you? And here's Cat!" They'd met Duncan many times, but mostly in crowded respectable pubs with other, vanilla, friends. So while they knew each other well on one level, certain conversation topics hadn't come up until recently. And had never been acted upon.

Jake passed Duncan a beer. When I saw Jake after work, he'd be in sharp suits, but today the tall floppy-haired guy was slumming it in a grey hoodie and trackie bums. 'Joggers', shops called them nowadays.

Duncan was too much a clothes snob to 'wear such things outside a sporting environment', he'd say. He was a few years older than me, nearly thirty-five; his idea of casual wear was combats or jeans. He liked fashion. The vain git was always seeking retailers for well-fitting trousers, or stocking up on yet more shirts. His cream linen shirt, teamed with dark jeans and blingy-buckled belt, seemed new. His dead-straight hair fell down to chin length, thanks to a brand-new haircut. I liked it. A man could have worse vices.

I swore he owned twice as many clothes than I did, but then I wasn't much into clothes. I was wearing one of my many stretchy dresses -- crimson, this one -- over black leggings. It's a classic look for those of us who are short with curvy figures. Otherwise known as big tits, big bum, want to prove there's actually a waistline in between! Duncan likes all three of those features, on me.

I lie. For special occasions -- yeah, fetish clubs -- I've got quite a lot of outfits. Corsets and skirts. Or corsets and knickers. Or just corset and stockings. Revealing dresses with a waist-cinching corset. You get the idea.

Today, though, was meant to be a casual afternoon of board games. Mostly. At Cat and Jake's house, we'd be able to chat openly about filth in a way Dunc hadn't been able to do with them before. They'd been messaging each other, and plotting...

"What do you want to play?" Jake asked. We only had a couple hours, but that should suffice to see how happy Dunc would be to do sexy stuff with the others. Throw me to the wolves, rather! Despite my nerves, I was looking forward to see how competitive both lads got over a game.

I eyed their tall bookcase across the open-plan lounge. It was full of stacks of game boxes. Many names familiar from my own game shelves, others -- Axis and Allies, Ninja Burger, Formula D -- not. I shrugged. "Settlers? Everyone knows the rules."

"Which version? Not the basic game?" Duncan asked. Four players on the original Catan island got crowded, and would come down to luck, if everyone knew what they were doing, so no self-respecting gamers played that. Unless stranded somewhere with only the travel version. It fit neatly on an airplane table, for example.

"I'm not up for Cities & Knights, not today," Cat said. "All the extra hassle of feeding Knights to defend against the vandalising Barbarians breaks my brain." She yawned.

"Seafarers, then?" Jake proposed. "You set up the edging. Some treasure islands, six sea hexes to mix in. Shuffled enough? Right, arrange them upside down in the sea, then." Jake gave me the pile of cardboard hexagons, I laid them out. "So, the scenario: first to 14 Victory Points wins -- at the beginning of your turn, as usual. When you reach a hex in the sea, turn it over. If it's land, you get one of that Resource." Resources were rock, wood, wheat, sheep or brick. "If you build a Settlement on an island in the sea, you get two extra Victory Points. As well as all the usual points for building Cities and that." One for a Settlement, two for a City. Two for the Largest Army, if you had the most Knight cards. Two for the Longest Road -- technically Trade Route, given ships could be included. "Who's starting?"

"Who's been to Catan most recently?" I joked, given how many games use your travel to select a starting player.

"I think Jake's got pointier ears than Duncan," Cat said, referring to Small World's rule.

"I ate a hamburger for lunch," Duncan said. Merkator used recent burger-eating as the start criterion, unless someone had been to Hamburg...

"I had a meeting in Hamburg last year. Just roll dice, like civilised people, will you?" Cat took control.

Duncan went first. He went exactly where I'd wanted to, building his first Settlement.

On the plus side, going last, I could place both my first and second settlements at the same time, before the others had to go in reverse order. I collected my starting resources from around the second; enough for a Road. Once you had a road to a junction, you could build another Settlement...

Cat also used up a rare brick for a road. Unless someone rolled a twelve, we'd all be dependent on Duncan for bricks. He got two, every time an eight was rolled. A few turns in, he bought what proved to be a Road Building card, so he definitely didn't need to hoard his bricks. Except to make all our lives difficult. Git.

Ten minutes later, each of us hoarding cards in the hope of making a breakthrough move, it was his turn. Duncan expressed willingness to trade one precious brick.

I'll swap you a sheep for a brick," I told him. I really needed that brick, to build a Settlement on the coast, and access that 3-to-1 trading port!

"I'll give you a sheep and a rock for a brick," Cat countered.

I didn't have any rock. Darn. I didn't want to give up any of my other precious cards, either.

"Can you up your offer at all?" Duncan asked me. "Two sheep? Sorry, Cat, I don't need rock. Though, actually..."

If I didn't get that brick, my chances would be scuppered. Time for the big guns. Only one thing for it.

I used a sweet voice and fluttered my eyelashes. "Dunc, love? I'll give you a sheep and a blow job for your brick."

"Hey! That's not fair!" Cat objected. "She's your partner!"

I could predict Duncan's reply. My bastard boyfriend -- fiancé, now -- always liked lowering the tone.

Dunc sat back in his armchair and crossed his ankles, breezily confident as a man could be. "Sure, it's fair!" His voice dropped to a low, louche, purr. He explained, "I'll accept a blow job off any of you..."

He exaggerated, for effect. While Duncan generally only played with other people, rather than fucking them, he wasn't totally averse to sexual contact with friends. Female ones, anyhow. Like most men, he wouldn't turn down any offer of getting his cock sucked, if they were vaguely sane, and sober enough to know what they were doing.

More importantly, he was fiendishly competitive at games. One reason I loved the guy -- he never complained that I was wanting to win, in an 'unfeminine' way. All's fair in love, war, and board games! If offering his dick helped him win -- not to mention possibly distracting his opponents -- he'd be all for it.

"Oh, we're playing like that, are we?" Cat smiled, all sultry and knowing. "I assume I can delegate my boy to deliver such a service?"

"That would be between you and your boy." Duncan kept his voice perfectly level.

He was lying.

I knew gorgeous Jake would suck cock when Cat ordered him to, but wouldn't choose to otherwise. Dunc wasn't into men at all. But that wouldn't stop him pretending, when winning a game was at stake.

I wasn't going to expose that fact. Not yet, anyway.

"A sheep, a rock, and a blow job," Cat stated.

I liked the way the game was going, but not too fast.

"Come on, Sarah. I need something to go with your cock-sucking sheep!" A surreal image; we all laughed. "Even from a woman of your talents, I need an extra card! If you don't want me to go with Cat's fair offer..."

"Oh, all right," I grumbled. "A sheep, and a wheat, and a blow job." Wheat was scarce in this game. But it was the only other card I didn't need this round.

"That clinches it, I'm afraid," Duncan told Cat. "Here you go, lovey, one card of your finest London Stock red brick..."

"And for you, one prize Texel sheep, one bushel of top-quality wheat, and we can settle up at the end of the game," I told him.

"Fair enough. We didn't include timing in the terms and conditions."

Bother. I'd meant, 'when we get home.' I had a horrible feeling my bargain would be collected upon...

"Ooh, sneaky!" Cat exclaimed. "We'll let you off this time, but I think all future trades need to be immediate."

"That's fair," Duncan agreed. He built a ship using my sheep, heading into the unknown sea.

My turn. A nine. Annoying. "I never get anything on nine!" Everyone else collected resources, all having settlements by a hex with a nine on. Oh, well. I laid out my wheat, wood, sheep and hard-earned brick, returned them to the bank, and placed my little yellow house. I'd now get more resources every time the numbers next to it were rolled.

"And Sarah goes into an early lead," Jake observed, as Duncan took no actions on his turn. "Done?" He rolled the dice, took a wood card. "Over to you, Cat."

Possibly responding to some signal, Jake slithered off the sofa where he'd been lounging. He always seemed relaxed sitting on the floor, leaning against Cat's legs when she was in an armchair. She absent-mindedly stroked his hair.

Cat grinned down at her husband. "You wanted rock, didn't you?"

"I could take some off your hands, I suppose. In exchange for a wood." Jake's poker face was dreadful. The boy was desperate for a rock card.

"Wood, you say? Hm. I suppose. All right. One rock, for a wood and your top."

I knew Jake spent a fair bit of time at home without many clothes. He was submissive to his wife most of the time, in private. Outside, he was an outgoing and charismatic sales manager. His good looks probably helped his career.

Wordlessly, Jake passed his wife a card, took the offered one, and pulled off his hoodie to expose his fit tattooed chest. He picked up his cards again, calm as anything.

I liked the view of the tops of his shoulders. When I'd seen the brown-haired boy topless before, he'd generally been standing. Jake was a foot taller than me, so I'd not been able to see the black and grey animals and plants curving over his clavicles and round onto his back. They contrasted beautifully against his pale English skin. There was an ant I'd never noticed before. Most people with tattoos start with one on an arm; Jake had instead a waistcoat effect, with ink covering his chest and back. A T-shirt would cover the lot, if he wanted.

I knew there was also a large black and red tattooed dragon entwined round his right thigh, its tongue stretching towards where he'd love a tongue. Jake's backside had no ink at all. Even though sometimes it was as red as the dragon scales...

"Hey! What about offering the rest of us a chance to trade?" I objected.

"My turn, I get to initiate trade. That's how it works." Cat tried to look nonchalant. "Feel free to take your kit off if you want, though."

"I don't strip off just anywhere," I told her. I wasn't the sort of girl to get drunk and lose clothes at parties. Unless I was at a fetish club, and I'd been so ordered...

"No? Shame. Your go, Dunc." I'd done nothing on my turn.

Duncan rolled the dice. "All right, Sarah. Seeing as it's you. You'd like to trade wood for my rock, right?"

"Yes, please."

"Right. Here's a rock, for your wood and your dress."

The bastard grinned at me.

Cat clapped. "And here's where we find out Sarah's just as competitive as Jake."

"Oi! Duncan's worse, if anything. I bet he's planning to get everyone naked, so they don't notice his cunning plot to win," I corrected, warning them.

"Just as well we're not playing Carcassonne," Jake observed. "Cat's memorised the numbers of every type of tile."

"Sounds like Sarah, at Scrabble," Duncan replied.

The frequency numbers are printed on the board!" I objected. "Also, you know all the obscure words in the Chambers Dictionary! And all 29 two-letter ones!"

"I got sent to school in Scotland! 'Ay, a' ae oo' is a perfectly normal sentence! Ma jo," he added, reckoning calling me his sweetheart would sound more endearing than discussing wool in a Shetland dialect -- which was not a normal sentence for him in the slightest, the liar. Those words hardly get used outside Scrabble boards even there, I'm sure.

"Bollocks!" I told him. "You don't even speak Scots. If your voice is Scottish at all, it's that lovely Edinburgh accent that's so clipped, people think you're English," I pointed out.

"Perfect 'plums in the mouth' proper RP, you speak, love," Cat reminded Duncan. "No Brit's spoken like that since the Fifties, not unless they're like over seventy. You're posher than the Queen is, now."

It was true: Duncan's plummy voice marked him out as 'foreign' Asian, not a British Indian. He'd grown up in half a dozen different countries in a Malaysian Indian expat family, while I was Malaysian Chinese; English was the native language for both of us.

Jake blinked. "Call me a pleb, but elocution wasn't my first thought when you mentioned 'plums in the mouth'..." He glanced meaningfully at his crotch.

Duncan laughed. He used his fingers to comb his shiny black hair back behind his ears. His mum complained he looked like a drug dealer, when his lush glossy hair nearly reached his shoulders. "If you get more points than me in this game, that could be arranged..."

The sneaky wind-up merchant! I knew Duncan had zero intention of ever getting anyone's testicles near his mouth!

Jake blinked. He'd never considered Duncan in that way before. On the other hand, he loved having his balls played with and wasn't fussy who did it. Jake also wasn't too fussy about who or what fucked him. Which definitely wouldn't be Duncan!

Duncan's view was that arseholes were exit-only. At least, his was. Me, getting off from toys he gave me to put up my bum? Well, that was one of the many reasons he privately called me his dirty, naughty, girl...

I ought to manage Jake's expectations. "Don't get your hopes up, Jake! This boy is the most fiendish gamer this side of the river! He'll promise anything, but renege on anything like that!"

"Oh, scupper it for me; why don't you!" Duncan's indignant exclamation was joking. Mostly.

We all knew the main weakness of Catan as a game: the winner is whoever benefits from everyone ganging up on the previous leader, when they were otherwise about to win. Like Munchkin, where all the great cards get thrown into one epic battle to stop person A winning, then player B wins straight after, with an easy boring fight against a Level 2 Gelatinous Octahedron because no-one can stop them.

It's why Cities & Knights of Catan, with its added complexity, is a much better game -- yes there's mechanics in place to stop a leader getting too far ahead too easily, Saboteur and Wedding demands are only playable against those with more points than you, but there's enough different ways to earn points that you can be more sneaky about it. The Traders & Barbarians version is simpler. Then there's the Catan scenarios. I like the Great Wall one, where everyone has to maintain a brick wall to keep the Robber hordes out.

Yes, I admit it; I'm as much of a gaming geek as Duncan, and almost as competitive. Depends on the game and our company.

"Who says I'm not on your side?" I asked Duncan. "I mean, don't let me stop you getting your face between Jake's legs if you want..." I teased. I like hot guys getting it on as much as the next slash-loving heterosexual woman, but Duncan would never go for a guy. It was a shame.

"It's gaming. I know you're not on my side! Also, I gave you that rock card for your wood and your dress, sweetheart. Pony up!"

I hesitated. Technically, I'd still be as clothed as Jake. But he was slim, and all his black and grey tattoos gave the effect of wearing a waistcoat, even though he was topless. Not to mention that a woman in a bra is different to a man not wearing a shirt. I'd known the guy for years, but, despite drunken college parties, Jake had never seen me get my kit off.

I'd snuggled up in bed with him, and him and Cat, recently, but that was in dim light and under a duvet. Being semi-naked in the mid-afternoon bright light of a suburban living room, my hefty breasts almost escaping their over-shoulder boulder holder, was a very different thing! At least their new-build house had net curtains...

Thing was, I was self-conscious. My body wasn't made to be skinny. Far from most Chinese ideals, let alone English ones. Even my skeleton had wide hips! I forced myself to adjust my perspective. I reminded myself: they wanted to see my body!