19 s is for checklis.., p.1
19 - S is for…: Checklist, page 1
part #19 of Checklist Series
Copyright
Published by:
Farm Boy Press,
Sacramento, California, United States of America.
First electronic edition: February 6, 2024
This edition: February 5, 2024
Copyright © 2024 by Lila Dubois, all rights reserved.
Cover design by Lila Dubois
Copyedits by Fedora and Gabriela
Book formatted by Farm Boy Press
ISBN: 978-1-941641-83-5 ebook
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owners and the above publisher of this book, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Publisher’s note:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Contents
Trigger Warnings
S is for…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Checklist FAQ
What to read next…
About the Author
Also by Lila Dubois
To my husband, who immediately offered to be a donor.
You show me, every day, what love really is.
Trigger Warnings
The checklist series is for mature readers and all books contain explicit sex.
In addition to common BDSM elements, this story contains:
Discussion of childhood trauma
Interacting with ex in a negative way
Speech and movement restrictions
Not allowed clothing
Heavy impact play
Discussion of sexuality and orientation
Assumptions about sexuality and orientation
Use of medical implements
S is for…
Chapter 1
Lihn, Julen, Peter | Peter and Diann
No one was happy with the checklist game.
That probably wasn’t strictly accurate, Lihn decided. He wasn’t sure how to feel yet. He was still considering. But most of the rumblings he was hearing were some combination of irritation and shock.
It didn’t help that the version of game he’d be playing was a little different.
At least one person, a sub, had decided to take the “out” the overseers had built into the game and leave, rather than play. Tareq, who an hour ago had been enjoying a beer in the parking lot with Lihn and three others, had intercepted his assigned submissive as she was making a break for it. Tareq’s charm halted her flight, and he and Nomiki were inside the club having a drink.
Ilias, another member of their Dom parking lot quintet, had peeled off to plan how to handle his letter, and his sub, not long after they moved inside.
If Lihn had the option, he would have done the same—found a chair, a drink, and then dedicated several hours to learning and planning.
For Lihn, things were a little more complicated than for Tareq or Ilias. Because he wasn’t the only Dom assigned to the letter S.
The overseers of Las Palmas had called an all-club meeting, and rather than announce they were selling the club, or raising dues—which had been Lihn’s top guesses—they instituted a mandatory game.
Every member of the club was assigned a partner and a letter of the alphabet. Together with their partner, or partners, they had to work through the BDSM checklist. The checklist was a part of the club contract that every member filled out and signed upon admission. It was a non-comprehensive list of every toy, kink, power-play, and piece of equipment. The idea was that before anyone agreed to scene with another member, they could request that person’s checklist to see if their kinks were compatible.
In practice, few people ever requested a potential partner’s checklist. There was no real need, because most people knew what they wanted and liked and would communicate that during the pre-scene negotiation.
According to the club overseers, that was part of the problem. Members were stagnant in their play, repeating the same scenes, with the same partners, over and over again.
Rather than suggesting everyone try adding one new thing to their next scene, or hosting demos to get people interested in a new toy or technique, they found a way to force new pairings and diversified scene content. Lihn fully expected half the club to walk away and give up their membership rather than participate. Not just because being forced to do something went completely against the core beliefs of BDSM. Despite what the media might portray, consent was the foundation of the lifestyle.
Still, Lihn expected people to walk because the members of Las Palmas consisted of the Southland’s rich, influential, and kinky.
But so far, no one had actually left.
Including him…and his new partners.
“I say we split it up and knock it out. We could get it done tonight,” Peter said.
They were lingering in the large foyer of the club. It was the transition space between real life and the rule-laden but lawless world of the club.
There were several exits from the foyer. A large, key-pad locked door, led to the submissive-only locker room and lounge space called the Subs’ Garden. A massive set of double doors opened into a short hallway that in turn spilled out onto one of the manicured paths that connected the myriad center-courtyard buildings that made up the club grounds.
The symbolism of them stopping here, in a limbo space, wasn’t lost on Lihn.
“I can’t believe Shibari isn’t listed under S.” Julen was flipping through the papers they’d each received when assigned their letter.
Most of the letters in the alphabet had been assigned to only two people—a top and a bottom.
S, however, was such a long list that six people had been assigned. Three Doms, of which Lihn was one, and three subs. Julen and Peter were the other Doms. Each of them had received a thicker than normal packet of papers—photos, bios, and checklists for the three subs who completed their team of six.
“You mean partner up?” Lihn asked Peter.
“Yes, we each take one of the women and a chunk of the list.”
“They didn’t assign us each an individual sub,” Lihn pointed out. “We got all three women’s checklists. A team effort.”
“I hate group projects,” Peter said.
Lihn started to laugh, but Peter didn’t. He was dead serious. Lihn cleared his throat, “Ah, yes, well, group projects are there to teach us why Batman works alone.”
Peter and Julen both shot him weird looks.
“They probably framed it this way because we’ve got swapping,” Julen said to Peter.
“Maybe, though in that case it would have made more sense to assign us each a sub and then leave it to us to swap them around.” Peter was frowning and absentmindedly peeling the label off the beer bottle he still held after their parking-lot drinking session.
“We should call all three of them, have a little meeting, let them know what’s going on,” Lihn suggested.
Peter shook his head. “No, let’s just get it done.” His jaw muscle flexed. “I’ll take Diann.”
Lihn stared at the other man, then looked at Julen. He didn’t know Julen all that well, but his guarded expression was proof enough that he was thinking the same thing Lihn was.
“Is that a good idea?” Lihn asked slowly. “Given your history?”
“Look at the list.” Peter grabbed the papers Julen was holding, flipped the page, and then held it up to them. The letter S items took up almost a whole page.
“See these ones? Diann loves every one of these. I know what she wants, and how she likes it, so I’ll take her and get these done.”
Lihn leaned in so he could read what Peter was pointing at. Diann had marked every item that started with “Serving as” with a definitive “yes.”
Diann was very open about her masochism and degradation kink. Serving as furniture probably played in to the degradation kink.
Peter said he knew what she needed, and given how much they used to scene together, Lihn believed it. But for Peter to suggest he take Diann… Maybe the club gossip was wrong about them, and maybe Lihn was misremembering their relationship.
But given the look he’d shared with Julen, Lihn was fairly sure the other man had reservations too.
Lihn was about to
“I’ll grab Delaney and do suspension. I’ll need to help Ilias with his letter, since he has rope.”
Julen’s dismissive tone made Lihn wince, though on the surface there was nothing wrong with his statement.
Yet Lihn couldn’t shake the feeling that he was standing on the tracks, watching a distant train approach. Maybe it would be fine, and they’d move in time to prevent disaster. Or maybe this hurried plan was going to cement them in place and they’d get run over.
Shaking his head to dispel the mental image of tracks running through a thick forest, a plume of steam in the distance heralding disaster, Lihn looked down at the checklists he held.
Train metaphor or not, this felt too fast, not thought-out enough.
Then again, he was known for being slow and thorough. Sometimes painfully so.
Rolling his shoulders to ease the worry-based tension, Lihn shuffled his papers, stopping on the last sub. Joni. He studied her picture, then her list of letter S items, a plan slowly forming.
“Okay,” he said after a moment. “But I don’t think we should start tonight. We should take time to plan.”
Peter was shaking his head, ready to argue, but Julen nodded. “I won’t be able to do a proper suspension scene until the night after. Tomorrow we’ll just assess and prep. Though that might change. I need to check in with Ilias and find out when the rope stage is available.”
Again, a twinge of worry tweaked Lihn, and he winced, though he didn’t think Julen noticed.
Peter nodded reluctantly, then added. “We’ll start tomorrow, and can finish the weekend with swapping and swallowing. Trade subs, have them suck us off. They all have at least willing to try listed for those. Everyone current on tests?”
“Yes,” Julen said, while Lihn nodded.
The club had regular testing for STDs available for those who preferred their play to include a sexual element, or any exchange of fluid.
It seemed their plan, such as it was, was done.
There was a moment of awkward silence before they all turned and headed in different directions—Peter back out the doors to the parking lot, Julen into the club grounds, and Lihn went to the Den, the Masters’ and Doms’ equivalent to the Subs’ Garden. If he was going to scene with Joni tomorrow, he needed to see what equipment was available.
As he walked, he tried to erase the uneasy feeling that this was all about to go horribly wrong.
Finally.
Diann adjusted the web of straps she was wearing. The damn thing took forever to get on, but it looked sexy once she was actually wearing it. A three-inch wide strap of black leather ran from the molded collar down her front, between her legs and then back up to connect to the back of the latex collar piece. It was like a full body thong, with a buckle at the small of her back that allowed the strap to be tightened, so it pressed hard on her pussy and dug into her ass.
Since she didn’t know who she was meeting, or what they were doing, she had buckled it just tight enough to stay in place, but not tight enough to compress her pussy in that achy way she liked. Additional straps of various sizes branched off that vertical piece—horizontal straps crossed her tits, covering her nipples and compressing her breasts. A wider strap—nearly six inches, so it might even have qualified as a waist cincher—hugged her waist. Decorative rather than compressive strips of leather angled up to curve over her hips, and leather garters around her thighs were connected by thin chains to the hip straps. A starburst of alternating chain and leather cord webbed from the breast strap up to the collar, covering the tops of her breasts, while leaving the undersides bare.
Her simple sandals made inelegant flapping sounds as she walked towards the dining room. Many subs went barefoot, despite so much of the club being outdoors, but Diann had a thing about her feet.
She’d confessed it once, to a past partner.
Having anyone touch my feet makes me feel vulnerable. Yes, even more vulnerable than when you have me tied down, legs spread, pussy on display. No, it doesn’t make sense.
She’d slip off her shoes once she was inside, but for now, she’d deal with the mismatching aesthetic of wearing nothing but kinky straps and ugly shoes.
Desire hummed through her, but need throbbed inside her, reverberating with each step she took and the beat of her heart.
Desire and need weren’t the same, no matter how the words were used. And desire didn’t mean sexual desire, at least not exclusively. The desire Diann felt at Las Palmas was both sexual, and not. She desired touch, even if it wasn’t sexual.
But her need…
Diann needed to be used. She needed to feel the press of another’s control, the bites of pain and humiliation that let her know that right now she was the center of that other person’s world, even if the way they showed it was by debasing her.
It wasn’t until a very bad relationship in her mid-twenties brought her to a therapist who turned out to be kink-friendly, that Diann was able to articulate these things about herself.
Since then, negotiating scenes had become much easier, because she was not only upfront about her kinks, but she was able to give a Cliff’s Notes version of the psychology behind them to her potential tops.
Diann was less worried about the game than many of the other subs she’d talked to last night in the Subs’ Garden. She’d waited, and waited, but never heard from her new partner, eventually driving home. It was only this morning that she received a message asking her to meet in the dining room for dinner tonight.
Her partner had taken a night to plan.
Getting that message—through the club’s secure communication system—meant she hadn’t spent all day impatient and anxious. Instead she’d been able to drive up to Malibu in the early afternoon and still have plenty of time to spare before meeting her game partner.
Diann stopped just outside the dining room doors, and slid off her shoes. Turning, she tucked them under the chair in the open-air courtyard behind her. Almost all the buildings at Las Palmas were hollow squares, with themed courtyards in the middle ringed by a covered hallway. There were a few public indoor spaces, and all the outdoor spaces were public, while the playrooms were private. Though of course, the playrooms all had the option to open the doors and allow people to watch. And a few even had narrow viewing rooms and two-way glass.
Barefoot, Diann stepped into the dining room.
An elegant buffet, catered by a five-star restaurant in the nearby city of Malibu, waited along one wall. The dining tables were Spanish-style heavy dark wood, varnished to be both smooth and glossy. The chairs were strict looking wood-things, with hard seats and straight backs. They weren’t particularly comfortable, but they were excellent multipurpose furniture, since the rungs between the legs and the decorative carved panel backs made for easy tie points.
But tables weren’t the only places to sit. There were sunken seating pits—squares with one continuous padded bench and a table in the middle.
Tucked into dim corners where the gold toned light didn’t reach, were things like low square tables, plain wooden benches, and large trunks filled with floor pillows or heavy wool blankets. And rope. There was always rope tucked away somewhere.
The dining room had only a scattering of people there when she arrived, and most of them were sitting with drinks and maybe a shared plate of small bites. No one was really sitting down to dinner yet.
She scanned the room looking for a partner. The message hadn’t said who she was meeting, or what their letter was. Only a time and location to meet.
There were a few lone men. Two of which sat with their backs to the door. Diann started for the first man, stopping when she caught sight of bare flesh under the table.
