The Femme Fatale's Curse Ch. 02

The bartender was a red-haired woman dressed in a man's sleeveless shirt and denim pants; she'd tied a bandana in her hair as a makeshift headband. As Jace approached the bar he watched her flit between customers at the bar, laughing and joking with each of them, her smile honest and genuine, and her eyes -- even in the dimness -- betraying an empathy Jace hadn't expected in the bad part of Acidalia.

She caught sight of him as he approached. The look on her face wasn't cruel, but she didn't try to hide her smile either. It was difficult to look up at the bar, bent almost double as he was, thanks to the humbler.

"Awwe," she said, as he approached the bar. "Poor thing. Someone's being awful mean to you, aren't they?"

She ruffled his hair, then curled one strand of it around her finger.

"I do love these curls though," she said. "Very pretty. I take it you're here to get a drink for your mistress?"

Jace tried to speak around the panties in her mouth, but it came out muffled and incoherent.

The bartender closed her eyes and stifled her laugh, shook her head.

"So mean," she said, as she reached down over the bar and took his chin in her hand. "Open up."

Jace did so, again his jaw not asking permission from his brain.

The bartender took the pair of panties from his mouth and laughed. "Eva's latest victim, I guess?"

Jace swallowed hard. "Victim is a strong word."

The bartender threw her head back and laughed. "I mean, you're the one in a humbler with jingle-bell nipple clamps, who couldn't have gotten her filthy, sweaty panties out of your mouth unless I helped you, but sure."

Jace sighed; a few other women at the bar had noticed and were not just laughing, but actually watching the conversation now. He tried to summon as much dignity as he could.

"A gin fizz," he said.

The bartender put her hands on her hips. "I feel really bad for you," she said. "Because Eva is being really cruel right now. But you're going to have to be more polite than that. Even if I am cutting you some slack."

"A gin fizz, please," Jace said, and his eyes dropped to the bartop as he said it.

The bartender rolled her eyes and laughed. "It's a start," she said. "If you're in service to Eva, you've got a long road ahead of you. I don't have the hear to make it much worse even though I could."

She turned and started making the drink.

Jace seethed and kept his eyes on the floor. He tried not to move, more -- at this point -- to keep the bells from jingling and drawing attention to himself than for any other reason.

"Jace...Jace Falconer?"

He turned took quickly and winced; both the humbler and the nipple clamps hurt at the motion.

He recognized that voice, he realized with mounting horror. Even here, in this place, he recognized that voice. It belonged to Carmen Marlasca.

He turned and sure enough there she was, black hair, trench coat, fedora, shirt, tie, high boots. God, he wanted her so bad. They'd even agreed to meet up before Eva had taken control of him earlier this week. They hadn't set a firm date, only said they'd wanted to. The last time they'd gotten drinks had been interrupted by a crowd of bootleggers and a raid by the cops, but he wanted her.

He wanted her more than anything.

And now she was seeing him here, like this, belonging to...

"I had no idea you were," Carmen said, and laughed covered her smile with a hand. "God, Jace. I..."

She laughed again.

"Is that a humbler?" She asked. "*And* a couple of nipple clamps with jingle bells? Someone *really* owns you, don't they?"

"Carmen," Jace said, and swallowed. "I...this is all...it's...it's something I'm doing..."

"Oh don't get me wrong, Jace," she said, and swirled the whiskey in her glass. "I really don't care if you're a bit of a sissy. It's just funny to me, because you tell the world you're this big, strong, tough guy, and now..."

She gestured to him and laughed that infectious, bell-like laugh he loved so much.

"I really never thought I'd see Jace Falcon -- THE Jace Falcon -- blush like this," Carmen said, and cocked her head. "You could have told me, you know. That you wanted this. I kind of like to dominate sometimes. A lot of times. You just came off as this super hardcore alpha, which I'm also into."

"Carmen, please --" Jace began.

"All right," the bartender said, reappearing with the gin fizz in one hand and Eva's panties in the other. "Here's the drink. And here's Eva's panties too; I wouldn't want to annoy her by not returning them. Open up."

Jace glared at her and shook his head.

"Look," the bartender said. "You're cute and I feel really sorry for you. I think Eva's being mean. But you need to get these back to her."

"Fuck you, I --" Jace began.

The bartender snapped her fingers and said, "Open."

Jace's mouth opened. He couldn't believe it. Only Eva was supposed to know the trigger.

Eva must have told her.

The bartender tucked the panties back into his mouth and slid the cocktail across the bar to Jace.

Next to him, Carmen shook her head and laughed.

"I mean, I do have room in my life for a submissive," she said to him. "Especially since my writing career has taken off in the last few months. I need someone to edit for grammar for me and print pages and keep my flat clean. And I'm not going to lie, I really do enjoy foot worship and body worship and the cute little jealousies of a submissive cuckold. I just never would have put you in that box, Jace. And anyway, it sounds like you're in service to Eva, which --"

"He is," Eva said from behind them, and Jace turned, hard enough to make him wince and for the jingle bells to let out a merry chorus. "Carmen Marlasca, right? Loved your piece in the Journal on the shipyards."

"Oh," Carmen said, and glanced from Jace -- on the floor -- to Eva, in front of her. "Thanks so much. Yeah, that was a fun one."

There was a pause, and Jace couldn't have spoken even if he wanted to. The panties had filled his mouth, immobilized his tongue, and anyway, The Curse kept him from raising his hands to his face.

But he desperately needed to speak. He had to tell Carmen everything -- about The Curse, about Eva, about how he didn't want any of this. About how he didn't actually belong to Eva at all.

"I'm sorry, I hope my boy wasn't bothering you," Eva said, and took the drink from Jace's hands as she did.

She also took the end of the leash.

"No he..." Carmen glanced down at Jace and smiled. "He wasn't. We actually know each other."

Eva raised her eyebrows. "Do you?"

"We do, yeah," Carmen said. "We..."

Carmen smiled and looked at Jace.

"Jace kind of sold himself to me as a bit of a dominant type of guy," Carmen said.

"DID he?" Eva asked.

Carmen swirled the drink in her glass again and ran her tongue over her teeth. Jace wished he could have run his tongue over his teeth, but there was only Eva's panties in his mouth instead. "He did, yeah."

"Well, Carmen, if you want to join us for a drink, I think I can do some explaining for you," Eva said. "I mean, are you meeting someone here or..."

Carmen shrugged, smiled. "I mean, yeah. I wasn't going to take it so seriously, but after what you're telling me about Jace here I..."

She shrugged, and this time didn't look down at Jace.

"Maybe I'm more interested in the guy I'm meeting here tonight," she said.

"I get that, girl," Eva said. "Let's head back to our table and when your man shows up, you can meet up with him."

Carmen laughed. "Sounds like a plan."