Maybe he should have brought his boys. Except none of them were married, so what the hell did they know about it?
Cyrus found his suit jacket and pulled his phone out. Before he thought better of it, he snapped a photo of himself in the mirror and texted it to Nora.
What do you think about the blue? he wrote.
Then he realized what he’d done.
He’d asked a white lady dominatrix for her opinion on his tuxedo.
For his wedding.
To Paulina.
What was next? Calling Lady Gaga and asking her to DJ the reception?
Cyrus started to write, Disregard, meant to text someone else that when Nora replied.
Wow.
Cyrus smiled. Good wow?
Hell good wow, she wrote. The blue looks great. Damn.
I’m looking for “God damn.”
Can I show Juliette? she texted back.
Please do.
Cyrus paused, tensed, awaiting the verdict. Well?
She’s purring. You can’t get any better than that.
He made Juliette purr. Cyrus wasn’t just renting the tux. He was going to buy the thing.
J says King needs that tux.
Ah, well, if this tuxedo was good enough for Juliette the Goddess, it was good enough for him.
Juliette wants to know if Paulina is traditional. Then she might want you in black.
She said she didn’t care as long as I liked it and she didn’t see it before the wedding.
She’s a keeper, Nora wrote. Juliette and I have spoken—go with the blue. Céleste agrees. She gives it two thumbs up.
Thanks, ladies, he replied, intending to sign off but the little bubble dots warned him Nora had more to say.
The guy I told you about said he’d meet you. Can you come to my place tonight at six?
Your house?
My dungeon. She sent the address.
It’s not normal for people to have dungeons, he wrote her. You know that, right?
Who wants to be normal?
Well. Cyrus had asked for this meeting. Might seem rude to cancel.
Conversation over, he replied. Then he swiped his finger and deleted that entire insane exchange.
“Well?” his tailor asked, glancing around the edge of the mirror.
“Measure me up,” Cyrus said. “I’m taking the blue.”
Chapter Seventeen
After his fitting, Cyrus changed back into his brown suit and tie, stopped for an early dinner of shrimp and grits, and headed over to Piety Street and Nora’s dungeon.
He was not sure about this dungeon thing.
When Cyrus arrived, he found the building looked pretty safe, pretty boring. A brick square place, like a small warehouse. He parked in the lot and went through the glass doors. In the lobby, he found an old-fashioned letter board with names and office numbers. Not too many.
She was the only one listed on the third floor. “M. Sutherlin,” he read out loud. “By appointment only.”
M? Not N?
Ah, he got it. Mistress.
According to the board, the first floor was occupied by a company called NOCS. The second floor was listed only as Warehouse.
Cyrus walked across the lobby to the door for the NOCS offices. He peeked through the glass. A handful of people were seated at desks in cubicles, working on computers, answering phones.
He bypassed the elevator and used the staircase. On the second floor, just out of curiosity, he decided to check out this “warehouse.” There was a set of unlocked double-doors just off the foyer. He poked his head in.
Coffins. Nothing but coffins in a long, dim room. Black coffins and white coffins and wooden coffins. A single gold coffin. Then rows and rows of wooden crates, likely full of even more coffins.
NOCS. New Orleans Coffin Suppliers.
No wonder Nora got a good deal on her loft.
When he reached the third floor, he found Nora’s door locked. Smart girl. She took her security seriously. He hit the buzzer next to the door, and immediately the door popped open for him.
Slowly, he pushed open the metal fire door.
He heard laughter inside.
Nora’s laughter, definitely. Low, throaty, unmistakable. Then a man’s bigger laugh. Cyrus followed the sounds down a short hall to an open door. He peered inside and saw what looked to him like a lobby from a turn-of-the-century hotel that was the respectful front for a brothel.
Sheer fabric the color of red wine hung from the ceiling to the floor. A fancy gold mirror hung on gold cords. A faded red and gold Turkish rug covered the stained cement floor. An older man, white, about sixty-five he guessed, sat on a dark red armchair while Nora lounged on a golden chaise looking like…well, she looked like something.
Cyrus could only stare as he took in the sight of Nora dressed for “work”: black boots with red laces up to her knees. Fishnet stockings. Short black leather skirt. Black and red corset over sheer black top. Hair down and parted in the center, black waves all over the place. Cleavage for years…and the reddest God damn lips he’d ever seen in his life.
No wonder the old white dude next to her looked like he was in heaven. He was ten seconds away from a heart attack and a one-way ticket to the pearly gates.
“Damn, Nora,” Cyrus said. “Warn a man.”
“What do you think a dominatrix wears at work? A muumuu?”
“You would look exquisite in a muumuu, majesty,” the old white dude in the suit said.
“Doc, behave yourself. We have company. Doc, this is Cyrus Tremont. Cyrus, Doctor Philip Danton, at your service.”
“At your service, majesty,” the man called Doc said. He reached for Nora’s hand, took it, and kissed the back of it. Cyrus got the feeling this was one in a long line of hand kisses Nora had to put up with from that man. She took it a lot better than Cyrus would have.
“Mr. Tremont,” Doc said, holding Nora’s hand and looking up at him. “I owe you a debt of thanks. I’ve been trying to get a one-on-one with the Queen for years. And out of nowhere yesterday, she calls me. May I shake your hand?”
“You can shake it,” Cyrus said, holding out his hand. “But don’t kiss it.”
Doc chuckled a crazy-old-man chuckle. Cyrus shook his hand and found his grip firm and sane. He’d give the old boy a chance. Maybe.
“Cyrus, have a seat.” Nora had been lounging on the chaise, but she sat up then and crossed her legs, patted the seat next to her. Cyrus wasn’t too sure about that.
“Maybe I’ll stand,” Cyrus said. “So what’s with the Doc?”
“When I’m not making my art,” Doc said, “I’m a bit of a card shark. You know the old Nelson Algren quote, his three rules for life. ‘Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mama’s.’”
“‘Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own,’” Nora said, finishing the quote. “You don’t want to play cards with Doc, I hear. He can bluff like a mother.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I would never bluff you, majesty,” Doc said, kissing her hand again. Grossing Cyrus out again. “My heart is on my sleeve. Feel free to take it and put your high heel through it.”
“Doc, you really do need to dial it down, please,” Nora said. She swatted his knee which, from the expression that crossed Doc’s face, gave the old man an orgasm, another heart attack, or both.
“For the Queen, anything.” Doc picked up a cup and saucer and sipped at his tea. Cyrus didn’t miss the glint in the man’s eyes as he looked at Nora over the top of the cup. Cyrus couldn’t remember the dude’s name, but Doc looked a little like the bad guy from The Hunger Games. The president with the beard and the crazy eyes.
“Tea?” Nora asked.
Cyrus took tea and a scone, which was a weird thing to be doing in a dungeon. Or maybe not. This was his first time in one. “What’s with the ‘queen’ stuff?” he asked as he sat next to Nora.
“Young man,” Doc said, pointing
at Nora, “this woman pouring your tea is none other than the Queen herself.”
“Queen of…?” Cyrus took a bite of his scone. Nice. Sweet. He wondered if Paulina could make him some of these.
“It was just my nickname in New York,” Nora said as she topped-off her own cup of tea. “King was The King. I was his Queen. As nicknames goes, not very creative.”
“Bah.” Doc waved his hand. “Had nothing to do with Edge at all. You were and are the Queen, because you are the most beautiful, the most wicked, the most vicious…oh, I could go on forever. Mr. Tremont, this woman is a legend.”
“A legend, huh?” Cyrus playfully elbowed Nora.
“Don’t get too excited. Like Doc said, I was the most vicious. The most vicious can charge the most money. I did things other dommes wouldn’t do. You know, because they didn’t want to go to jail. Didn’t have anything to do with being pretty. There are dommes who have me beat ten times over in the looks department.”
Cyrus didn’t know about that.
“The viciousness is true,” Doc said. “God bless her dark heart, I have heard stories all the way down here.”
“You into that?” Cyrus asked him. “Getting the shit kicked out of you?”
“By her? Who wouldn’t be?” Doc chuckled again, and Nora only looked to the heavens. But she was smiling the way a woman does when paid a good hard compliment.
“You say you heard stories down here? Did you ever meet Queenie over here before she came down to Nola?”
“Never had the pleasure,” he said. “But legend travels.”
“You ever had one of Nora’s red business cards in your possession?”
“If I did, I would wear it on a gold chain around my neck. Why do you ask?”
“Can you keep your mouth shut?” Cyrus doubted it.
“Let me handle this,” Nora said. “Doc, you keep your fucking mouth shut about this or no dominatrix—in this town or any other—will ever strip you, whip you, and make you her bitch again. Ever.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Doc said.
Cyrus wiped his hands on a linen napkin before taking the photo of Father Ike out of his breast pocket.
“Could you tell me if you know this man?”
Doc gingerly took the photograph from Cyrus and gave it a long hard look. Cyrus tried not to get too excited, but he knew from experience that if somebody didn’t know somebody, they knew it at once. If they kind of recognized somebody, it could take a long time to remember how and where and when they’d met them.
“Possibly,” Doc said at last. “Though if I had to swear I’d seen or met him in a court of law, I couldn’t.”
“We’re not in a court of law,” Cyrus said. “But can you tell me maybe where you saw him? How you might know him?”
“Since I retired, I’ve started teaching classes on various kink and fetish topics,” Doc said. He was still staring hard at the photograph. “I think this man came to one of my classes.”
“Where are the classes held?” Cyrus asked.
“Adult bookstore in Metairie has a basement we use. I’ve been trying for two years to get the Queen to come teach a class,” Doc said.
“Too busy being lazy,” Nora said.
“When was this class?”
“This past summer. July.” Doc said it firmly, no question mark at the end. He was more certain than he gave himself credit for.
“And this class you taught,” Cyrus continued, “what was it about?”
“Again, I can’t swear that was where I saw him,” Doc said, “but if my old brain can be trusted, it was a class on medical fetishes.”
He returned the photograph to Cyrus.
“All right, so, medical fetish?” That was a new one for Cyrus. Then again, they were all new ones.
“Oh, you know,” Doc said, his voice airy, casual. “Latex gloves and naughty nurses, exam tables for very intimate examinations. Speculums. Forceps. Suturing. One of the Queen’s specialties.”
“Funny, I never could sew on a button,” Nora said, “but give me a guy with a med-fet and some needle and thread, and suddenly I’m doing embroidery on his face.”
Cyrus turned his head and eyed Nora.
“He thinks you’re joking, Majesty,” Doc said.
“Let him think that,” Nora replied with a wink.
“I don’t think you’re joking. I think you’re scary.” Cyrus meant every word.
“Ah, now he’s starting to see it,” Doc whispered to Nora. “Why you’re the Queen, and no one else is.”
“Pfft,” Nora said, batting the comment away with a wave of her hand. “Every domme I know does sutures.”
“Yes, but you’re the only one who left them in,” Doc said.
“True.”
Cyrus shifted a few inches away from Nora.
“Wise man,” Doc said.
“So…all right. You think maybe the man in the photograph was at a medical fetish class. That stuff we found, though, it wasn’t like forceps and needles.”
“No.” Nora pursed her lips. “True. That was all basic bondage stuff in the bag.”
“Will you ever tell me who we’re talking about?” Doc asked.
“No,” Nora said quickly. Doc took it well.
“Did that man possibly ask any questions in the class? Come up to you after?” Cyrus was not about to let this interview get off track, especially since it seemed they were finally onto something.
“He did not.” He paused, brow furrowed. “He might have emailed me.”
“What?” Cyrus’s eyes widened. “You sure?”
“Not in the least. But after that class, I received an email from some anonymous account. The address was just gobbledygook, numbers and letters. Free Yahoo account or some such. I only think it might be him since he mentioned he’d been in my class and there were only three men in the class. One I knew. One who talked to me after the class. And then him.”
“You still have that email?” Nora asked.
“I doubt it.” Doc sounded unsure. “Even if I did, I don’t know if I’d feel comfortable sharing it, however.”
“If it’s this man,” Cyrus patted his breast pocket over the photo. “He’s dead.”
“What if it isn’t him?” Doc asked.
“Then you know neither of us will say a word to anyone about it,” Nora said. Cyrus nodded.
“I’ll see if I can find it in my trash,” Doc said. “But I tend to delete everything I can as permanently as I can. You have to be discreet in this line of work.”
“What did the email say?” Cyrus continued. He really ought to be writing this stuff down in his notebook, but he’d do all that after Doc was gone. If he brought his notebook out now, Doc might clam up.
“A short email, the kind I get often. He said he was a man looking for a professional with medical expertise for work on male genitals, money no object.”
“CBT?” Nora asked.
“What’s that?” Cyrus said.
“Cock and ball torture,” Nora said.
“I hate this job sometimes,” Cyrus muttered. “Go on, Doc.”
“I don’t believe he specifically asked about CBT. Very short email. I replied that I didn’t know any professionals who had medical degrees or medical training other than the sort for playing doctor in a dungeon. They call me ‘Doc,’ but that’s just a nickname. Retired art professor. I replied to the email that I was sorry I couldn’t help but mentioned a few contacts in other cities—San Fran, New York, L.A.—who might know pros. And that was that.”
Nora said nothing. Neither did Cyrus. Something Doc had said earlier had struck him as strange though.
“Money no object,” Cyrus repeated. “You said the email said, ‘money no object,’ yeah?”
“That’s true,” Doc said. “I do remember the writer clearly wrote that. He put it in all caps. Why?”
“The man we’re investigating wasn’t known for having a lot of money,” Cyrus said. “That’s all.”
“He might have saved a l
ot. It happens. Or family money,” Nora said. “I’ve known men in his position who had access to a lot of family money.”
“We’ll look into it.” Yeah, Cyrus could believe Søren the Well-Groomed Viking came from money. Even the way he talked sounded like money.
“Anything else?” Doc asked. “Please, anything, my Queen. Order me to do anything, and I’m all yours.”
“You gotta stop with the queen stuff,” Cyrus said, trying not to laugh. “The Queen is either Aretha Franklin or the old white lady in the big house in England.”
“Oh, but in our kingdom, Mistress Nora is the Queen.”
Cyrus couldn’t believe it. That man kissed her damn hand again. He was about ready to suture the old boy’s lips himself if he didn’t stop mackin’ on Nora. The girl had a man. Two men.
“Was that all you had for Doc, Cyrus?” Nora’s hand was still clutched tightly in Doc’s paw. “Any other questions?”
“I got one,” Cyrus said. “What’s the appeal?”
“Of what? Kink?” Nora asked. “You got all night?”
“For a man. Submitting to a woman.” He nodded at Doc.
“I should think it was obvious,” Doc said.
“Not to me,” Cyrus said. “I mean, I get a woman submitting to a man. That makes sense.”
“Sexist much?” Nora said.
“You know what I’m saying,” Cyrus told her, suddenly sweating.
“No, what are you saying?” She smiled, batted her eyelashes. Cyrus tensed. He was about to get himself hardcore murdered by a tiny white woman wearing knee-high leather shit-kickers and truck-stop hooker lipstick.
Murdered. To. Death.
“You know, right?” Cyrus said to Doc. His voice had gone a few notes higher. “Don’t you? You get me, right?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Doc began, “but I think what you’re saying, young man, is that you understand why women desire—sometimes, not all the time, and certainly not all women—to submit to a powerful man as it’s so hard to be a woman in a world so hostile to women. The fantasy of having a powerful protector is a potent one when it seems like the threats from dangerous men are everywhere all the time. And, of course, in an ideal world, a woman’s first male love is her father, who was affectionate, adoring, and yet an authority figure. Why wouldn’t a woman desire a man to be—as her father was—her protector, first and foremost, but also a source of unconditional affection as well as an authority figure and disciplinarian? Ergo, your statement that it’s more understandable that women wish to submit to men was simply an acknowledgment of the sexist socialization that women experience in patriarchal cultures.”
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