Epic Novel

February 22, 2013

Dreamspinner

Keywords

• Adventure
• Bondage
• Contemporary
• Dom/sub
• Dominant male
• Drama
• Leather club
• M/m
• Rape (as a crime)
• Sub training
• Submissive male
• Suspense
• Young sub

Fettered

Dylan Carter has always played second fiddle to his perfect older brother, but now that brother is implicated in a terrible crime, and Dylan's family is imploding. Dylan can’t hide anymore. Knowing he’s falling apart, he searches for something or someone to hold him together—and lands in a BDSM bar called the Stonewall.

Dylan doesn’t understand Miss Dolphinia, the hard-drinking queen who seems determined to play matchmaker. But more confusing is the way the powerful men in leather make him feel. In her wisdom, Miss Dolphinia sends Dylan off to a back room for his introduction to the world of erotic spankings and bondage.

Dylan’s teacher—for want of a better word—is the very dominant Vin Hauser. Vin likes to play hard, but he’s honest with himself—he knows all those men want is a strong hand, not a long-term relationship. Yet Vin can’t help but hope Dylan might be different.

With controversy over his brother’s sins stirring up danger around him, Dylan needs Vin’s support more than ever. But until he and Vin learn to trust each other, Dylan will have to face his fear and the growing threats alone.

Hearts on Fire Reviews

Her writing style is clear, clean and wonderfully descriptive. Told from Dylan’s POV the story opens with Dylan knowing absolutely nothing about the BDSM lifestyle and walking into the hardcore Stonewall and slowly growing into the perfect sub. READ MORE

Live your Life, Buy the Book

Despite being surrounded by horror the book very much felt like the story of Dylan and Vin and the overall message was one of being brave and honest with yourself. I have no qualms at all recommending this book. It was excellent. READ MORE

Sinfully Sexy Book Reviews

This book is FABULOUS and I LOVED it! Full of emotion, dark in places disturbing in others and peppered with humour and lines that had me laughing… and not forgetting the sizzling tantalisingly, delicious and tortuous sex!!! READ MORE

Joyfully Jay

Fettered is not your average BDSM novel. It’s a reminder that the world has shifted, that those who participate in the lifestyle today most often make a choice and follow a set of strict rules and regulations. But for some people, it’s an innate need. READ MORE

Mrs. Condit & Friends Read Books

The author has written a taut plot and character driven story that plums the depths of what really goes on behind the picture-perfect facade that a family presents to the world and the evil that can live inside the most charming exterior. READ MORE

Reviews by Jessewave

And here, dear reader, is the thrust of Fettered by Lyn Gala–it is quite like a coming of age novel. A story of self discovery and personal growth wrapped up in a compelling and tautly woven plot. There are no namby-pamby characters in this novel. READ MORE

Three am: book reviews

The concept and plot are good and the story isn’t afraid to delve into pretty dark areas. It’s also not afraid to show a kink that may not be for everyone but definitely works between the main characters. The writing is very good, but what really shone here are the characterizations. READ MORE

Dames Unrestrained

The world of Fettered feels all to real from the stifling feeling of the family home to the grunginess of the Stonewall bar. The characters feel very real and little if any suspension of disbelief is necessary. READ MORE

MM Good Book Reviews

You will love Dylan and his vulnerable soul; you will adore and worship Vin and his gorgeous, commanding personality. You will absolutely die for Miss Dolphinia and her incredible ways. READ MORE

Chapter One

IT’D been a long time since Dilly had been in the weeds. That’s what they called it at work, in the weeds. It meant they had some new server who had confused tables nine and twenty-three on opposite sides of the restaurant and forgotten table eleven behind the server station half wall. Off in the weeds, they’d snicker to each other as exasperated customers flagged down other servers and asked for managers and ended up wandering into the server station to refill their own drinks. Dilly swallowed and realized he was off in the weeds and didn’t know what he was doing. But he pushed open the door and stepped into the bar anyway. The beers he’d had at a friend’s house probably helped shore up his courage.

Several men, fifteen or twenty, sprawled across bar stools and laughed loudly. Others danced on the center floor, drinks held high to keep from spilling them as they twisted and swayed. Patrons ranged from a young man in a vest that showed a thin hairless chest to a heavyset man in a red shirt, open halfway down so thick, curled white chest hair showed. Dilly recognized the dress code from the Internet. Old Guard. Flagging. Bandanas and black leather jeans or jackets that shimmered in the multicolored lights. Dilly’s gaze went to the whip coiled at one man’s belt. Another had a black handkerchief hanging from a pocket, and Dilly scrambled to remember what it meant. Black. Did that mean tying someone up or hurting someone? He couldn’t remember. He was so far in the weeds he didn’t know how to find the damn path again.

But….

But he couldn’t leave. Ever since he’d seen the pictures of all his brother’s kinky toys laid out on a bed—the black coiled whip, the leather cuffs and shining chains, the clips and gags and straps that Dilly couldn’t even understand—he hadn’t been able to get them out of his mind.

The news anchor had discussed his brother and the investigation, and Dilly could only stare at a coiled whip on the screen behind the anchor’s head. Dilly figured he was wired as wrong as his brother. He had to be. He couldn’t stop wondering what his brother had done—what it would sound like for a whip to hit flesh. What it would feel like to have that leather slap his naked ass.

He inched through the doorway. Outside, the city was cooling after the unseasonable heat of the early autumn day, but inside, the heat clung to the walls and the men.

He finally tore his gaze away from the bar area and looked around the tables. He could see bare-chested men, young men with pierced nipples and mesh shirts or vests. He had woefully underdressed in his black T-shirt and tight jeans, but he had a dark-haired boyish cuteness that could compete with any of them with their gelled hair and eyes lined in black.

Dismissing those, he studied the other men, the ones in heavy boots and black T-shirts. A woman stood near the bar, but then Dilly blinked and realized the person who looked like a woman had one hell of a huge Adam’s apple to go with the magazine-ready blonde hair piled on top of her head, and heavy makeup. His head? Dilly sent up a prayer that the man/woman wouldn’t come talk to him because he could not afford to offend people in this type of bar.

A man with a leather vest and heavy gold rings looked Dilly up and down, and Dilly faded back toward the wall. Rather than take the hint, the man smiled, pushed himself away from his table, and walked toward Dilly with the loose-limbed stroll of a predator. Dilly might have turned and run for the door, but a group of men were coming in, blocking his retreat.

“You’re new,” Dilly’s admirer said when he got close enough, and then he kept getting closer, crowding in until Dilly pressed back against the wall, the little red box for the fire alarm pull digging into his back.

“Um, yeah,” Dilly agreed, his eyes scanning the crowd as he searched for some sort of rescue. A couple of people watched, including a man at the bar who had a perfect haircut, the sort Dilly associated with his brother’s lawyers, and a white button-up shirt tucked into black leather pants, a whip hanging from his belt. Dilly noted the dark blue bandana on his right side and a black one on his left. One side meant top and one bottom, but Dilly couldn’t remember which was which, and he really didn’t understand why a man would have a bandana on each side. He was so distracted with his own thoughts that he forgot his admirer until he felt a warm hand stroke up his arm.

“Eyes here, boy.”

Sucking in a surprised breath, Dilly focused on the man. He had a carefully trimmed beard and dark eyes. Dilly swallowed nervously. Up until a few weeks ago, most of his fantasies had revolved around the other students at Riverview High School, which made sense since he’d only graduated a year ago. Okay, maybe he’d harbored one or two Smallville fantasies he would never, ever tell anyone about. However, this man definitely wanted to have sex with him.

The man pressed closer, his body trapping Dilly against the wall. “What are you looking for tonight?”

“Answers?” Dilly said, his voice rising at the end, making his uncertainty clear.

He didn’t say he wanted answers about why his brother might have taken control away from perfect strangers. He didn’t say he wanted answers to why he couldn’t stop thinking about letting someone else take control of him. He suspected he wouldn’t find the answers he wanted in here, but he didn’t know where else to look. He definitely didn’t have the sort of family where he could go home and ask. Oh, he had something pretty close to Leave It to Beaver—closer than any of his friends, but sometimes he thought they kept that happy-happy family by not talking to each other.

The man leaned back and gave Dilly a good, hard look. Then he gave a laugh. “Someone show the virgin to the bar. He needs a little liquid encouragement before he passes out. When you decide what you want, I’ll be here.”

Technically, Dilly wasn’t old enough to drink, and he had already drunk more than he probably should have. But when the guy shoved him in the direction of the bar, he allowed himself to get pushed through the men who had started to crowd uncomfortably close. A number of men laughed, offering him a slap on the ass as he passed, and Dilly could feel himself blush. His cock hardened, but he didn’t know whether the forceful hands on his shoulders pushing him through the crowd or random groping without permission caused his reaction.

His escort pushed him right up to the bar before standing behind Dilly with his hands on either side so he completely trapped Dilly.

“Are you old enough to drink?” the guy asked.

“I…. Um….” He so wasn’t. But he felt like if he said that, he’d fail some test.

“Get him a whiskey,” one of the others yelled at the bartender.

“I shouldn’t—” Dilly tried to say.

The new man leaned close, grabbed Dilly’s forearm with a tattooed arm, and pinned it to the bar. “You’ll only get this attention when you’re new enough to still smell like fresh meat. Enjoy it,” he whispered into Dilly’s ear, laughing as his fingers pressed into Dilly’s arm hard enough that the pain made Dilly suck in a breath.

His first admirer faced off against the new guy. “Fuck off, Halverson.” Halverson. The tattooed guy was Halverson, and Dilly grasped onto that fact like a lifejacket. The bartender put a whiskey down in front of Dilly, and even though he really hadn’t planned to drink, Dilly grabbed the glass and tried to gulp it. Tried. His eyes watered as it burned all the way down. Gasping for air and coughing at the same time led to serious light-headedness as Dilly gripped the edge of the bar.

“Good boy. Drink your whiskey,” Halverson said in a rough whisper, and the barely disguised desire made Dilly’s cock ache with need.

“Back off or there’s going to be trouble,” admirer number one warned, and Dilly was uncomfortably aware of how many people watched with amused looks and chins propped on hands like they were the local entertainment.

“What? You’re going to sue me?” Halverson asked condescendingly. “Get off it, Guard. You may have first dibs, but the boy isn’t yours. No collar, and poaching isn’t illegal, not around here.”

Dilly wrapped his fingers around the whiskey glass and kept his eyes on it. The burn settled into his stomach, warming him. While getting drunk definitely hadn’t been part of his agenda, it sounded better and better with each passing second. Dilly tightened his fingers around the glass and downed the whiskey. He held his breath as it stripped the skin all the way down his throat until it landed in his stomach like a fireball.

“That a’boy,” Halverson laughed. “You have some spunk in ya. Come over to my table, and let’s see how far that streak of bad goes.” The words trapped Dilly between wanting to obey and fear. He’d wondered what it would feel like to have someone forcing him into a corner, controlling him. Right now, he would call it sixty percent hot with thirty percent nerves and ten percent nausea-inducing terror.

“You aren’t the only top in this bar,” Guard said. “Some of us just don’t demand that men break the law to prove a point.” Guard reached down and grabbed Dilly around his cock and balls, then squeezed hard enough to make Dilly go up on his toes and hiss. “So back off, Halverson.”

“Now boys, don’t go scaring all the cute little boys away before they even get their feet under them,” a voice warned.

Halverson looked toward the other end of the bar. “I’m just having some fun, and I sure don’t see anyone objecting.” Dilly might have objected. Maybe. He couldn’t quite decide what to think, because at some point his brain and his cock had stopped talking to each other.

“I see someone drinking when my guess is he isn’t old enough. I see two someones using the fact they are big, beautiful bruisers to intimidate a boy who needs a little space before he can truly appreciate the glory of a well-timed intimidation. And I see two men who, if they don’t stop their little war over the submissives, are going to be finding themselves a new place to hunt their prey.”

Halverson gave a grunt, but Dilly noticed the man behind him—Guard—eased off so Dilly could turn. When he did, he found the man/woman he’d seen earlier standing next to them. Despite the piles of blond hair and perfect red fingernails that tapped the bar top, she had a look that made it clear arguing was not an option. She seemed older than Dilly had noticed from a distance, with deep laugh lines around dark eyes.

“You’re not his type,” Halverson said dismissively.

Guard bristled, but the man/woman put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Are you arguing with me?” the transvestite asked with all the sweetness of a lion getting ready to star in a nature documentary about the cycle of life and death. It was scary.

The blond man/woman ignored both the tops and flashed Dilly a brilliant smile. “He’s the type to know that a gentleman always buys a lady a drink, especially when the lady owns the bar and can make his life miserable by banning him from the best source of beautiful man-flesh anywhere in the state,” she warned with a stern look Dilly’s way. “Don’t you?”

“Um, yes?” Dilly guessed, his mouth so dry he couldn’t get more words out. The weeds tangled around his feet so badly that he felt like he’d fallen off the face of the known world and landed in some alien dimension.

The cross-dresser smiled at him, her perfect lipstick lined in a darker shade and her dark lashes fluttering. She reached over and then patted Dilly on the arm. “The boys and I are going to have a little discussion.” She let her hand linger on Dilly’s arm for a moment, and he squirmed. His first reaction was that he preferred men—scary-looking men like Halverson and Guard and the one at the bar with the two bandanas who watched the whole scene with dark eyes, his five o’clock shadow making him look dark and dangerous. However, the cross-dresser’s attitude called to Dilly, whispered unspoken promises, and made his cock hard.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dilly finally managed.

The cross-dresser reached up and pinched his cheek the way a grandmother might, which dissipated much of the lust Dilly had been feeling. “What a cutie. You wait right here, and I will be back. Get yourself something to drink.” She twitched her shoulders before she caught Halverson around the arm the way a teenage girl might cling to her boyfriend. “Coming?” she asked Guard. Surprisingly, Halverson didn’t shake her off and Guard followed, and the three of them headed across the crowded bar. Dilly noticed many of the customers were watching as they whispered to each other. On the far side of the room, beside a door marked “Employees Only,” they stopped and talked for some time, and Dilly considered running for the door.

The dark man at the far end of the bar watched, not bothering to hide his stare. Several times, the cross-dresser glanced at him even while she talked to the two men, but everyone else had gone back to their business. Time for an exit, stage left. Or right.

“Hey, kid, you want a soda?” the bartender asked, interrupting Dilly’s escape plans.

“Yeah, please,” Dilly said, reaching for his wallet.

The bartender held up his hand. “Don’t worry about it. When you get ordered to drink things, the ones who do the ordering do the buying around here.” He laughed and shook his head. After grabbing a glass, he dumped ice into it and filled it. “If you’re going to put your toe in the water, you might want to avoid jumping in the shark tank before you know how to swim,” he suggested, putting a Coke in front of Dilly. “Halverson there is definitely a shark. Oh, he may not eat you alive, but you’ll have a few teeth marks before he’s done.” The bartender looked down the length of the bar. “Of course, he’s not the only shark who’s smelled blood on these waters. You’d better watch it, or all the subby boys are going to be jealous.”

Dilly frowned, not liking how that sounded. Worse, his cock was still interested, and that didn’t make much sense to his big head. “Yeah. Thanks,” Dilly said. Even though the bartender insisted his drinks had been covered, he pulled five dollars out and slipped it into the tip jar on the counter. The bartender gave him another smile before working his way down the bar to fill other drinks.

When Dilly looked over, he noticed Halverson was back at a table and the cross-dresser was making her way across the room, laughing with a man here and letting her fingers linger on the shoulders of one of the young boys in net shirts. Eventually she made her way back over to the bar and carefully settled herself down on the stool next to Dilly.

First she sighed at him, and then she shook her head fondly. Dilly was definitely getting some mixed signals. “Sweetie, you need to practice the word ‘no’,” she said firmly. Guard had followed her and kept on heading toward the door, but when he heard that, he made a loud dismissive grunt. She looked over her shoulder at him, harrumphing in his general direction as he left.

Dilly blushed. He did know how to stand up for himself, but he’d been overwhelmed and more than a little complimented that men like that would even notice him. The cross-dresser chuckled and patted his arm. “You’re going to get nailed by half this bar if you keep blushing so nicely.”

“I’m new,” he offered as an excuse.

His savior laughed loudly, and then she reached over to run fingers through his dark hair. “Oh babe, I could tell that. So could the rest of the bar. You’re just catnip in a bar full of tigers.”

Dilly cleared his throat and tried to look anywhere other than the ample cleavage right in front of his face.

“So, I’m assuming you aren’t just new around here, but new to this whole side of the street, yes?” She let her nails scratch over the back of Dilly’s neck, and he shivered.

“Um. Yeah. I was… you know….”

“Horny?” she offered.

Dilly could feel his face heat up. At nineteen, he was technically a teenager, but he hadn’t blushed like one for a couple of years. “More confused,” Dilly confessed.

“Confused is catnip around this place.” She turned around and looked out over the barroom. “So, what is this big question that’s driven you to wander into the wilds of leather-land?”

Dilly opened his mouth, and then closed it, terrified. How do you confess to a stranger that you are terrified that you’re like your brother, terrified that your fascination with leather and bondage will lead you to hurt others the way he had? Right now Dilly wondered about how it would feel to have the whip hit his skin, but maybe something would turn some switch and he’d be like his brother—someone who found a sick pleasure in hurting others. Allegedly. Like they said on the news, Gary was only an alleged rapist.

“Spit it out,” the woman insisted, poking Dilly with a bright red fingernail.

“Are you a man or a woman?” Dilly blurted. The second it came out, his blush turned into a full-out nuclear meltdown in his face. He half expected her to take offense and kick him out, but instead, she smiled so wide that the sides of her eyes crinkled up more.

“Is that a shy way of asking to see my cock? Because, darling, I’ve got a big one. Nice and fat.” She reached down to fondle her cock through her dress. Dilly had definitely left the land of normal.

Dilly could feel himself blush. “Well, I know, but are you…? Should I…? What should I call you?” He verbally stumbled into silence.

She pursed her lips and looked him up and down. He had the feeling if he fell short in her estimation, manicured nails and all, she was going to kick his ass. “It isn’t complicated, babe. I do not want to be a woman.” She held her arms out to show off the tight corset with the black stitching over red velvet and the sizable boobs pressed out over it.

“You—you don’t?”

“Nope, I love my dick. I am all man. But you do call me ‘she’, because I am a queen. You may call me Miss Dolphinia.” She reached over and tweaked him on the nose with one finger.

“Oh.” Dilly didn’t have more of an answer than that.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “And you should always offer to buy an old queen a drink.”

“Okay, what can I get you to drink, Miss Dolphinia?” Dilly tried very hard to keep the drowning sensation to a minimum, but maybe he’d already gone down for the third time and hadn’t realized it. How, he wondered, could someone who embraced manliness, want to be called “Miss” anything?

Miss Dolphinia’s lips twitched, and Dilly suspected a less polite queen would be laughing right now. “You just tell the bartender that you’re paying for the old queen’s next drink,” Miss Dolphinia said in her husky whisky voice. Her strong perfume washed over Dilly as she came in confidingly close. “I’ll tell you the truth, babe; I don’t drink much alcohol anymore, so I have him keep a special pitcher of lemonade—with just a little gin for flavor. Go on now, make your contribution to my joint. I have to go take care of business, but you just remember that the word to use when drowning is ‘no’.” With that, she gave him a peck on the cheek while letting her hand trail down over Dilly’s chest.

Then she turned and wandered her way through the crowd, seemingly knowing every person in the place. Either that or she liked to feel up perfect strangers. Considering she’d had her hands all over him, that was possible.

It took some time for the bartender to return. He spent quite a bit of time with two-bandana man at the end before he came back and took Dilly’s order, this time accepting the money, and the Old Queen’s drink set Dilly back a little more than he’d expected. The bartender winked at him. “You want me to have someone send it over to Her Highness?”

“God yeah, could you?” Dilly squeaked. “Will she….” He stopped. He didn’t want to offend her, but he didn’t want to get too close to her. He had the feeling she was the deep end of the pool with Mr. Shark, and he couldn’t swim in water that deep.

“Naw, she won’t bug you no more; you paid up,” the bartender offered. “If you want a beer, I can get you one if you promise to dump it the second anyone official comes in. The good thing about this place is that cops tend to stand out.”

“No thank you. I think I need to stick with a Coke,” Dilly said, pulling out more bills to pay for his soda. Hopefully it would quench the heat in his stomach—unlikely given that every time a leather-clad man looked his way, Dilly could feel the heat grow, but he could hope. The bartender poured the drinks and then raised a hand for one of the waiters to come get Miss Dolphinia’s drink.

Dilly rubbed the cold moisture off his soda glass and watched the waiter’s black-Speedo-clad ass as the guy maneuvered his tray through the room. Miss Dolphinia raised the highball glass toward Dilly—then seemingly drained the whole thing without swallowing, smoothly turned, and fell deep into conversation with two younger men.

Dilly ordered a second soda and watched the room fill up. Bears, twinks, and Doms—oh my! Before those were just words—okay, so they were words and very graphic images on a computer screen as he looked up porn. But that had been different. Controlled. Safe. Now they were people. Men. Hot men. The one truth Dilly knew intimately was that people, that men, carried danger around like a little seed ready to sprout. And hot men were about as safe as a nuclear bomb. The smell of leather and musk, the heat, the noise of rough voices rising and falling like a tide all threatened to overwhelm Dilly.

Turning his back on the crowd, he focused on the glass in front of him. He thought about the black gag lying next to the whip on his brother’s bed, the thick bulb on the end. He could imagine the men in this bar strapping a gag across his mouth so he couldn’t keep saying stupid shit. Many of the boys already had leather around their wrists, and Dilly imagined what it would feel like to have leather around his skin, holding him as firmly as Guard had held him up against the wall.

“Hey, you okay?” a voice asked, rising over the ocean of voices. Dilly looked over to see the dark and handsome two-bandana man sitting next to him.

“Yeah. Fine,” Dilly said with a plastic smile.

The man gave him an incredulous look. “Don’t go into acting, kid,” he suggested after a second, and Dilly could feel himself blush again. He would wear out his face at this rate. Dilly should be offended by this guy who couldn’t be more than midtwenties calling him “kid.” However, his common sense had clearly gone on strike because there was something hot about it.

The guy slapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Miss Dolphinia suggested I show you the back and give you a chance to recover some without all the hungry eyes on you. Interested?” The man took a drink from his beer, seemingly not all that interested about Dilly’s answer.

Dilly should have said no. After all, he didn’t even know the man’s name, but his cock voted to follow dark eyes anywhere. Up close, Dilly could see the wide shoulders and muscled arms, and his gaze traveled down to leather pants so tight that Dilly could see every line. The guy was a little older than Dilly, but then most of the men in the bar were. Dilly’s cock definitely wanted more.

“Um, sure,” Dilly said, swallowing all his nervousness as he tried to put on a flirty grin. That earned him another incredulous look, but the man leaned closer and ran his hand possessively down Dilly’s arm.

“Name’s Vincenzo. Mostly people call me Vin, but I think you’ll call me ‘sir’, won’t you?”

Dilly swallowed. “Yes, sir,” he agreed. When his parents raised him with good manners, including calling adults “sir” and “ma’am,” he was fairly sure they’d never envisioned this.

Vin slowly smiled before leaning back and looking Dilly up and down. “Well then, let’s go in back,” he suggested. He put his beer down on the bar and let his large hand rest on Dilly’s back, urging him toward a door that said “Employees Only.”

Exiling his last qualm, Dilly allow