‘I know you’re lying,’ he said.
I sighed. Everyone always knew.
‘Please,’ I said. I knew I wasn’t supposed to talk, but I couldn’t help myself. I blather when I’m nervous. ‘I’m trying find this book and I promised Davian and –’
‘Davian?’ he said. ‘Oh. You’re the one.’
Suddenly the door opened all the way. ‘Not a word of this,’ he said. ‘Between you and me, I like Davian.’
At first I didn’t move. I had no idea what was happening.
‘In,’ he urged, tugging me forward.
He shut the door and everything went black.
‘Straight down the hallway,’ he said. I got the impression he was pointing, just from the sound of his movement, but I couldn’t see a damn thing. Why was I always getting myself into this stuff anyway? I was pretty sure that if I was willing to sit still long enough for some kind of therapy, a shrink would tell me it was because I was easily bored. Or craved a challenge. Or had some kind of sexual issue.
Which was probably why I’d never sprung for a therapist.
I put my hand out, feeling for a wall. I had to lean a little to find it. If anyone could see me, they’d be watching the back of a very confused, wobbly woman trying to make her way down a very dark hall as though she were blind.
I expected to come out of the dark hallway into the light of a larger room. But the hallway, and the dark, just seemed to go on. I got the impression, oddly, that I was travelling not downwards, to a cellar, as I might have expected, but upwards, towards an upper floor of a building.
The wall abruptly ended, and my hand stretched into black air.
Someone took it. I bit back a quiet yelp of surprise. The hand in mine was soft and supple as fine leather. It took me a moment to realise it was leather. A glove, calfskin by the feel of it.
I wanted to bend down and rub the fabric against my cheek. Even in the dark, I controlled myself. Or rather, the fear that was at war with the lust within me kept me from doing anything stupid.
Stupider. I was already standing in the dark I-didn’t-know-where holding hands with some gloved stranger. How much stupider could I possibly be in a single evening?
Not stupid. Daring. Doing my job.
Right. Keep telling yourself that. I couldn’t even conjure up Nancy Drew any more. That was how far gone I was.
Silently, the hand began to guide me forwards. I resisted, holding my free hand out, trying to touch the air, trying to make sure I didn’t run into anything. There was a sense of murmuring, of people around me, but mostly it was very quiet, and pitch-black. I couldn’t get a sense at all of the number of people in the space or how big the space was. I also couldn’t tell how much of what I was hearing and sensing was real and how much was some kind of audio recording. It was like trying to tell if faraway music was coming from a great sound system or being played live.
After a while I came to trust the hand that was guiding me. Even if I couldn’t see, they either could, which seemed impossible, or they knew the room and the space well enough that they were taking care with me. I didn’t walk into anything. The noises around me ebbed and flowed. Sometimes we passed places where I actually heard snatches of conversation. Other times, it got quiet.
It felt like we walked for ever, but in truth I think we were just walking slowly, taking our time. In the dark, it seemed twice as long in both time and space as it actually was. Maybe he or she or whatever was holding my hand was just making sure that I was safe each moment.
The hand holding mine tightened just slightly and then we both stopped.
‘Your chair, madame,’ a voice said. So it was a man after all. From his voice I had a sudden vision of a tall, thin blond man dressed in a tux and black gloves. I wished I could glimpse him, just to see how far off my perception was. My experience has been that, from their voices alone, people never look like you think they will.
He took both of my hands, this time from a slightly different angle, and set them on something. After a little exploration I realised this was the back of a chair. I hesitated a moment. Sitting down meant I was going to stay, no matter what.
But I’d come this far.
Not to mention: I really didn’t know how to get out. I had a general impression that if I just turned fully around and walked in a straight line, I’d find that door. But I didn’t think that general impression was at all correct – we’d taken at least a few turns between here and the door, and we’d moved so slowly that I sometimes couldn’t tell if we were turning or walking in a straight line.
So I did the only thing that seemed reasonable. I whispered ‘Thank you’ to a man that I couldn’t see, pulled out the chair in front of me and sat down in the pitch black.
I was at a table, covered in cloth. There were at least a few people at the table with me. I could hear shuffling and the occasional ting of plates and cups. From time to time someone whispered something.
Putting my hands on the table, I felt a plate, another plate, a cup, silverware, a napkin folded into a shape that I couldn’t work out. It was a dinner table. A formal dinner table, if the fork above the plate was any indication. I wondered if I’d stolen someone’s invitation by working my way in. How could they even keep track in the dark of where people sat? I had no idea.
I wanted to ask someone what was going on, but I was afraid my voice would be overly loud. Not like anyone could turn and look at me, but since I couldn’t exactly find my way out, I didn’t want to be the centre of attention. Plus, leave it to me to shout out something like that at the very moment when they turned the lights on. Floodlights, knowing my luck.
But they didn’t turn the lights on, and no one said anything that gave me any indication of what was going on. The longer I sat there, the less solid the darkness got. At first I thought they were turning up the lights, very gradually, allowing us to see small things. But I realised it was just my eyes adjusting. It wasn’t that I could actually see anything. But shapes began to show up, small movements. If I stared really hard, it seemed that I could see the white of the plates in front of me, just slightly.
Soft music started up somewhere in the room. I turned my head, trying to figure out where it was coming from, but it was nearly impossible. Unlike earlier, when I’d been uncertain if the noise was real or recorded, this music was clearly being played somewhere in the room. A slow, soft classical piece with a lot of violin.
Beneath it, a quiet voice on a microphone wove through the sounds. It took me a moment to realise she was speaking, not singing. It was the blue-haired woman from the club.
‘Good evening,’ she said. Her speaking voice was as beautiful as her singing voice, huskier and with a slight accent I couldn’t place. ‘Welcome to the Blind Café. You know the rules, of course, but I’d like to reiterate them if I may. First, no lights of any kind. Not even a phone. The Blind Café is designed to provide you with a sensory culinary experience unlike any other. Second, if you are a designated lock, your keyholder sits on your right. This is your dining partner. Please treat them accordingly. Lastly, you may not excuse yourself from the table prior to dessert. Other than that, the servers will be glad to provide you with anything you need. Bon appétit.’
My heart hammered in my chest. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I had no idea what was going on. Locks? Keyholders? I wiped my hands on my skirt, even though no one could see the way my palms were sweating. Maybe I could just walk out. Maybe I could make it to the door before anyone turned on the lights. What did it matter if I ran into things? I’d just make a break for it.
I felt a movement on my right. A soft voice said in my ear, ‘Hello, I’m your keyholder.’
Davian? It was the first thing my mind dredged up. Of course it was.
It wasn’t him. This man sounded like him, sure. But only in the way that some men in the dark sound alike. Mostly, it was just my lustful brain wishing for him.
This man’s voice was a little lower, more gravelly. I was grateful for
the dark because of the way I started blushing, the heat in my cheeks making me reach for my water glass. It took me two tries to actually find it, and I lifted it with both hands, feeling suddenly that I wouldn’t be able to hold it well since I couldn’t see it. I brought it to my face and pressed first one cheek to its coolness and then the other.
‘I guess that makes me your lock,’ I said.
He laughed, quiet, closer to my ear than I expected him to be. A second later, I felt the air move around me, and then his hand was on my arm, a firm and exploratory touch.
‘Do you come here often?’ he asked, his voice a soft sigh in the darkness. It seemed we were supposed to be whispering, and so I kept my voice equally low.
‘Never,’ I said.
‘Me neither,’ he said, but I got the impression from the laughter in his voice that that wasn’t entirely true.
At my side, the sound of a voice from above me and off to my left. ‘I’ll be bringing a plate around your left shoulder,’ a woman said. ‘This is your appetiser. You’ll be fed by your keyholder.’
Fed by. Oh, gods, this was just getting better and better. Not only was I sitting totally in the dark, I was going to be fed something I couldn’t see by some stranger?
I felt a hand slide up my jawline, begin to explore my cheekbones, the corner of my mouth. It was exploratory, tentative, blind, the same way I’d explored the table earlier.
‘Ready?’ the stranger asked. His thumb was still at the corner of my mouth as if marking the place where it sat. I didn’t dare open my mouth and dislodge his thumb, or send it into the heat of my mouth, so I just nodded my assent.
A piece of something pressed against the centre of my lips. I realised he was using the other hand as a marker.
‘Open,’ he said.
I opened my lips just enough to realise it was a piece of fruit. Peach, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. I closed my teeth around a piece of it, let it fill my mouth with flavour and texture.
Oh, my gods. It was so good. I’d heard people describe food as orgasmic before and I’d always thought it was rather over the top. But this was just that. The perfect textures and flavours melding in my mouth, making me never want to swallow.
Suddenly, I was all sex. It was the realisation that there was this way to focus, to lose all of the outside world and focus on just the thing in front of me. I wanted to fuck that way, in a slowed-down world where I only noticed the smallest of things. The very taste. Lick of a cock, the scent of someone’s skin. The way the tip of their cock felt against the slow curl of my tongue. I wanted to slip under the table and listen to every single slide of the stranger’s zipper. I wanted to lay my head in this stranger’s lap and smell his scent through his clothing. I wanted to explore his cock the same way he’d explored my face.
I knew that if I reached down and put my fingers between my thighs, I’d find myself already wet. For probably the fourth time tonight. I was insatiable lately. Everyone, and apparently everything, turned me on.
It suddenly occurred to me that I could do just that. Who would know? It was dark, completely and utterly dark. There was soft music playing. The sound of people murmuring and feeding each other around me sounded surprisingly like sex.
I slipped one hand between my legs.
‘Fuck,’ the man next to me said.
Actually he said ‘fork’, but my sex-addled brain heard something entirely different. Still, my mouth opened of its own accord as it had been doing every time he said something to me. This time, it was something light and fluffy, a buttery crust that seemed to fall apart on my tongue. Savoury and sweet.
While he fed me, I shifted in my seat to open my legs slightly. I reached down with one hand and tugged my skirt up a little. And then farther. No one could see me. No one could see that I’d just brought the hem of my fabric up way past my hips to expose the curve of my lace thong. No one could tell that I was slipping my hand under the lace, bringing two fingers to touch my already wet cleft while a strange man fed me sensual and wonderful food.
I curled my fingers into the heat of my body, let myself focus and feel. I didn’t want to move fast, I didn’t even particularly want to come. I just wanted to feel and focus and see what every sensation felt like. It was the slowest, most leisurely masturbation session I’d ever had.
By the time he got to the sweet and salty caramel cream that he was spooning onto my tongue, an orgasm was building itself up inside me, a sweet and salty thing of its own. It rose in me, slow and fierce, a swirl of pleasure that ran up my spine and met with the pleasure in my mouth. I tried to stay quiet, to keep the sound of pleasure from leaving my lips. It came out as a sort of mmmm, only louder and more forceful than the ones at the tables around me.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, just as I came.
‘What?’ I asked, breathless, confused. I was sure I hadn’t heard him right. I was too busy tasting sweet and feeling sweet and breathing deep into my chest with the soft pleasure of the orgasm that had run through me.
‘I said you’re beautiful,’ he repeated. ‘Especially when you come.’
He reached out and found my wrist, the one that was still buried under the table, the one that was attached to the hand that I had been masturbating with. He did it directly, without feeling around, without trying to find his way. And he curled his fingers around my wrist and brought my hand up to his face.
I curled my fingers into a fist, to keep the lust scent and dampness of my fingers from his face. A flush of embarrassment ran through me as he brought his hands to his mouth and ran his tongue around and around the soaked edges of my fingers before sucking them into the heat of his mouth. My already sensitive pussy gave a twinge every time he sucked. Jesus.
Around me, I heard other murmurs of appreciation, the sound of fingers getting sucked in mouths. Was everyone around us fucking themselves as I’d been? I would have thought I could hear that, would have noticed that, but apparently I was so busy fucking my own self that I hadn’t even noticed.
He sucked my fingers, murmuring low sighs of appreciation. Licking them round and round, then dipping between them to clean the space between.
It was so good, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said.
‘What did you mean, beautiful when I come?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice super low. Trying to whisper a thing that I really wanted to shout out. ‘How did you know?’
He brought my hand up to his face for the first time. I explored the edges of him. Sharp jaw, a little stubble. Nice full lips, still wet from my juices. Nose, cheekbones. The bottom edge of a pair of glasses. I was careful not to put my fingers on the lenses. Not that it would really matter here.
I realised that they weren’t actually glasses. Not reading glasses, at least.
I used both hands this time, touched the edges and the lenses.
Binoculars? No. Goggles. And not just any goggles. Night-vision goggles.
I had an image of myself, getting off while we were eating. Hitching up my skirt. Fucking myself. Of him down on his knees in front of me, exploring every part of me.
And then, worse, I had an image of all of the tables around us. Did everyone have night-vision goggles on?
Oh, fuck.
‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered. His voice tickled the edge of my ear. ‘I’m the only one who can see you right now.’
I let out a stupid sigh of relief.
‘But I can see you well enough to know you don’t belong here.’
I was sure the thump-thump of my heat was giving me away. I squirmed in my seat. Around us, others still made low noises of appreciation, murmurs and sighs.
‘I’m new,’ I whispered.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I know who you are. Why are you here?’
I shook my head. ‘I can’t say,’ I muttered.
‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘We’re all rooting for you.’
What? I leaned in to ask what he meant, but he covered my mouth with the front of his hand. Someo
ne walked past us, steady footsteps, a pattern of breath that seemed familiar somehow. I stayed quiet.
‘Let me help you out,’ he said. Without waiting for a response, he took hold of my hand and pulled me out of my chair.
When we got to a hallway, he sent me out on my own, turning away and leaving me in the dark before I could ask any questions. I found my way outside, blinking in the shine of the streetlights.
Rooting for me? What did that even mean? Clearly he’d confused me with someone else. Which was bad. What was worse was that I’d discovered nothing – nothing – about either the sex club or Davian’s book.
CHAPTER 14
‘Coffee?’ Davian’s voice, even through my cell phone, did that thing it always did to me, sending little shivers along the edges of my stomach.
‘Coffee?’ I fumbled. I was at my desk, trying to find a first edition of Pride and Prejudice that was in good condition. I would have said it was a near-impossible task, but I had a new perspective on such things. This was nothing compared to what Davian’s book was putting me through.
His laugh was deep and warm. I liked the way it washed over me like a blanket.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Would you like some?’
‘Are you asking me out for coffee?’
My heart did its silly little pitter-patter. I was already calculating in my head whether I could sneak away some time today. It was tempting, oh so tempting, but I already knew the answer to my own question. It was no. Lily was off talking to our lawyer, and then she was going out with the new girl of hers that I still knew nothing about. Well, the new girl I might know something about, if the lemongrass scent still lingering in my office was a leftover from her. But I couldn’t leave the store empty, as much as Davian’s offer might tempt me.
‘Actually, I’m asking you in for coffee,’ he said.
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘It means I’m standing outside your picture window watching Webster chase mice in his dreams and hoping you’ll let me into your nice warm bookstore.’
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