I stared at this message while I sipped on my coffee. Fabulous, I thought. I needed some time to think of exactly what I wanted to ask, so I spent the morning texting back and forth with Samantha about other book things and possible things to ask.

Samantha suggested that I needed to be honest up front and tell this J.P. character why I have questions.

“That way he’ll know right out of the gate that you’re not looking to hook up,” Samantha said on the phone to me while I emptied my dishwasher.

“What? I thought you said this wasn’t that kind of site?” I wasn’t able to hide my frustration.

“It’s not. Mostly. But you know, I think it would be best if you prefaced that. Just in case.”

I rolled my eyes. Samantha is notorious for encouraging me to do things, but then her mother instinct will kick in and she’ll toss out an open-ended warning. Her warnings are always phrased with a “just in case.” It’s like she doesn’t want to scare me off from things, so the “just in case” is her gentle blanket warning.

“Okay thank you, Sam,” I said into the phone.

“Though, you might enjoy hooking up with a bad ass kinky guy, Aims. It’s been a while since you and Chris split and I’m sure you’d enjoy a non-silicone fuck.”

“Um, hello? I don’t even know if J.P. is a guy or a girl. J.P. could just be their initials, so that could be anyone,” I said, completely ignoring her comment about my ex…or my method of getting off right now.

While I half listened to Samantha on the phone, I jotted down a quick grocery list and decided after I got off the phone that I’d head to the store. Then I’d reply to this J.P. person.

“Give me his handle, I’ll look him up on Kinky Links,” Sam requested.

“What? You’re on Kinky Links?” Stunned, the question flew out of my mouth before I could filter it down.

“Yeah. You know I have non-vanilla needs. How do you think I met Ryan?”

“Are you serious? You met Ryan on Kinky Links? The Ryan you married? The Ryan I know? That Ryan is on Kinky Links?”

“Yes. We have a few secrets that we keep behind our doors.”

“Yeah, locked doors. My God, I can’t believe you never told me! Do I even know you?” I laughed.

“Well, it’s not exactly a conversation starter.”

I needed to get off the phone. I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that my best friend met her husband on Kinky Links. I knew she wasn’t shy when it came to anything sex-related. She often blurts things out when I’d apply a filter.

“Okay, I’m on a bit of info overload now. I’m going to run to the store and then I’ll reply to J.P.”

“Wait! Before you go, give me their handle.”

“Why?”

“Think of it as doing my job. I’m checking this person out to make sure they’re not a weirdo.”

“And how can you tell?” I sarcastically asked.

“If their profile says their fetishes include tying up authors, I’m going to have to advise you to pass.”

I shook my head.

“Bye, Sam. I will catch you later.”

I hurried out and did the few errands I had planned. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud in the car as I thought about how Samantha and Ryan met. More questions would definitely follow from her tossing that little bit out in the air.

Once I was back home and settled in at my desk, I woke my laptop up and logged onto the Kinky Links site. I now had five new messages in response to my posts last night.

“Let’s take a look at the new ones,” I quietly said out loud to no one but myself.

Hmm, delete. Moving right along to the next one.

Ugh. I closed that one and moved onto one from a dungeon up in L.A. called Club Skin.

How nice. I quickly typed out a response to Club Skin.

I almost accidentally typed my actual name but corrected it to CuffedNBound. I moved to the fourth new message.

I saved this message as the articles could be of use and I’d read them tonight. The fifth message was a picture of a very long, photo-shopped dick.

“Lovely,” I said as I hit the delete button.

Okay, so a few were helpful. I opened the message up from J.P. again. This message was still the most personable.

“Let’s see what’s in your profile, J.P.,” I said out loud as I clicked on the handle JPFever.

I quickly skimmed the profile that popped up for JPFever…male, sadist. My mind stalled on the word, “sadist.” One word came to mind: pain. I focused on the profile.

I read it a few more times. While he comes across as very confident and proud, he doesn’t seem like an asshole. I decided to glance at some of the photos he had posted. The majority of them were pictures of women, but there were a few men, and they were all bound in some fashion and most had red markings on their bodies. Most of the women were bound in rope and the red marks were mainly on their breasts, but some had them on their butts or legs. In taking another look at the male pictures, I saw they were bound in chains and their lash marks were primarily located on their backs and butts.

Mmm, some of those guys had fine asses. Minus the red marks.

The males and female subjects all seemed to be in their early to mid-twenties. All the captions listed the subjects name following either the word “sub” or “slave.”

Were these all subs or slaves of his at some point, or just play partners?

There was a static male in many of the pictures, which I deduced was JPFever. While most pictures didn’t seem to have him in a head to toe shot, or a full-on facial shot, I could still see enough. He was a good-looking guy and certainly didn’t look like a man that was nearly fifty years old. In some of the pictures he had chest hair and in others he didn’t. I’m guessing he was a fan of shaving it from time to time.

Enough staring; time to message him back.

I looked over my message and was satisfied with it. I explained who I was, what I was doing and posed a question. Seemed like a great start. We’ll see how he replies or if he replies. I decided to send Samantha a text.

I set the phone down and began working on an outline for my new book. Before my fingers even hit the keys on the keyboard, my phone alerted me to an incoming text.

I felt no reservation in giving her his handle because I knew that he was an actual person and he was easy on the eyes. At least the part of him that I could see, he was easy on my eyes…assuming those were pictures of him.

My phone was quiet now and I was able to get some work done. I was pleased with my outline so far and would begin digging a little deeper to fill in the blanks. It was a few hours from the last time I heard from Samantha when my phone notified me of a new text.

I rolled my eyes and set my phone back down, but it continued to be assaulted by Samantha’s rapid-fire texts.

I finally just picked up the phone and called Samantha. I couldn’t take the constant texting.

“Did you see the pictures with the boob bondage?”

“Yes, Sam. I skimmed through some of the pictures,” I said while I logged back into Kinky Links.

“What did you think of those hot young guys all wrapped up in chains?” she asked.

I flipped back to the images of the guys. They were easy on the eyes, too.

“Poor little, young, ripped looking guys,” Samantha said in a sad mocking voice.

“I think they’re probably enjoying it. I mean, look; all of them are hard,” I said as I clicked through the pictures of the guys.

Samantha and I opened up the profiles of the guys featured in JPFever’s photo album. We commented on how all the guys ranged between twenty-one and twenty-four.

“He’s got a thing for younger, model looking type of guys. Some kind of look hungry,” I commented as I noticed how many of the guys’ ribs were visible. “Maybe he feeds them after he chains them and beats them,” I suggested.

“Yeah, feeds them his dick,” Samantha added.

I laughed at her suggestion of the feeding after the beating, and then we laughed uncontrollably about “feeding after the beating.”

Samantha and I continued to look through some of J.P.’s pictures, and as they opened up on my screen in a larger view, we’d make some comment or observation about them.

“Here’s another hungry guy,” Sam said as we both opened up a picture of a guy on his knees with his arms chained behind his back.

“Do you think sub Douglas is smiling or grimacing?” I asked and turned my head sideways to consider a smile or grimace.

“Hmm, sub Douglas is smiling. Look at that bulbous, purple cock head, oozing the pre-cum. Next,” Sam said as we moved along the pictures.

The next one I opened looked a little different than the ones we’ve seen so far. This image seemed to be taken at a distance and was of a younger guy tying up a woman. As I read the caption to myself, Samantha read it out loud as she saw it.

“Not mine, yet.” Samantha paused and we were both trying to zoom in on the girl. “Obviously he’s got his eye on her,” she said.

“Looks like it was taken a few years ago, or posted a few years ago, at least. Maybe we’ll see her further in the slew of pictures,” I said.

After another ten or fifteen pictures, we hit another one where the caption read: Not mine…yet. This picture was another one taken from a distance of a guy tying a woman’s feet. Then another four or five images in there was another photo from a distance with the caption that read: Not mine…yet. This photo had a woman suspended from the ceiling by rope and a man was hitting her with something.

“Wow, I’d say there is a lady out there who has his heart and he plans on making her his,” I said and clicked on the next image.

“I agree. You’ll have to ask JPFever if you guys get chummy.”

We wrapped up our phone call and I went back to work reading up on the articles that one of the other responders sent to me. After I finished reading through the articles, I decided to log back into Kinky Links and see if I had a message from J.P.

“Ah, hello Mr. J.P.,” I said with a smile as I clicked on his message.

I pulled out my notebook and began jotting down some character notes and J.P.’s info regarding the sub and slave. After I finished making the notes I wanted, I hit “reply” to J.P.’s message. I thought it was kind of him to ask about the characters.

I hit send and read back over my notes when the bar that notifies me of incoming messages slid across the screen. It was from J.P. Wow, that was quick. Maybe he was on Kinky Links when he received my message.

I thought for a moment before I hit reply. Would there be any harm in telling him my pen name? I mean, after all, a pen name is to protect me. So, would there be any harm in telling him? It’s no different than a reader having my pen name and looking up info on my books and such.

Subconsciously, Samantha was sitting on my shoulder. I grabbed my phone and sent her a text.

I stared at her message and before I could fire off my text, another one of hers raced in.

She partially read my mind, so I deleted that part of my text.

“I was going to anyway,” I said to the screen of my phone and tossed it aside.

It wasn’t until the next morning that I heard back from him. So far, he’s very responsive and his messages are thorough. I hate it when people gloss over certain parts of a message or an email. J.P. seems put together to at least know to reply to the entire message.

Damn. I guess I wasn’t very creative and supposed it was rather obvious and gave away some of my secret interest. It’s not really an interest. An interest would be something that I’ve tried and liked. I haven’t even tried it to know if I’d ever like it.

And I probably won’t try it. Not after what happened with Chris.

I’ll stick to the sidewalk and just continue living vicariously through my exciting characters. They get the amazing sex with a captivating man who sweeps them off their feet…and carries them across the bed of overturned seashells.

My mind flashed back to J.P.’s profile. Walks on the beach don’t excite me, but watching someone walk barefoot on a bed of overturned seashells does.

That wasn’t romantic at all.

“Hell to Amy,” I said out loud. “J.P. isn’t heaven sent. He’s a sadist.”

I typed back a simple and short response that read, Very clever, J.P. His response came almost instantly.

Whew, good idea. Note to self, bound to books instead of desiring to be bound. Good advice, indeed.

I slumped back in my chair and stared at my word count for the new book. I most certainly needed to buckle down and bind myself to the book.