Saving Sebastian: A Catharsis Novel (Custos Securities Series Book 3)
Page 5
There were no bouncers outside to draw attention to passersby, though there was one inside, or at least that’s what he thought the paradox of a man was that always manned the reception desk when he visited the club. He approached the door and typed his personal code into the keypad, unlocking the door. Putting his weight behind it, Sebastian pulled the heavy door open along its slider, stepped in, and pulled it shut behind him. He turned and smiled at Khaleo, the lone occupant of the club’s foyer entrance.
Rather than the stereotypical huge musclebound barbarians with black tshirts and shit-kickers with arms crossed menacingly over their chests, Khaleo was about five-ten and always had on a pastel color of some kind. Tonight it was a button-down pink dress shirt. Sebastian could never tell what nationality he was, but his skin was a flawless golden brown color, his hair short and dyed bright lavender.
He always wore makeup that was expertly applied and artfully done. Some nights he looked like he was ready to perform in some kind of sci-fi adventure stage performance. He was a particular level of beautiful that would often be termed feminine, but there was something in his eyes, an awareness, an edge, that kept one from thinking he was anything but masculine.
He’d actually drawn the man several times over, from memory. The first time he did so, he realized the man seemed remarkably laid-back, almost tranquil, but the more he looked, the more Sebastian thought he was so much more than the club greeter and began to assume he was more than likely a bouncer.
He smiled to himself as he remembered one drawing of the beautiful man he’d done where he was a ninja superhero comic character in black spandex from head to toe, leaping through the air as he chased down a villain. When Sebastian approached, he glanced up and saw Khaleo’s raised eyebrow at his expression, and quickly schooled his features, glancing back down to the floor.
“Good evening, Sebastian.”
“Good evening, Sir.” He didn’t know if the man was a Dom, a sub, neither, or a switch, so he always went with that honorific to be safe.
He stepped forward and raised his left arm. Khaleo slipped a lime green paracord adjustable bracelet on his wrist, signifying he was submissive and available for play. Not everyone utilized the club’s app for the purpose of meeting members, and even when they did, pictures were not provided until personal messages were exchanged via the app and both parties approved and sent their own picture from their phone.
He headed into the submissives’ locker room and used the app to get into his assigned locker, locking his stuff in it with the touch of a button to his phone. Making his way out of the locker room, he walked toward the main area which was called the Tranquility Room, directly to the enormous L-shaped bar.
Grateful to find an available seat where he could easily turn and observe the goings on, he waited patiently until one of the bartenders noticed him. A few minutes later, Taryn stood before him, smiling shyly. He chuckled softly as he realized what a pair they were, both nearly unable to meet the other’s gaze, trying to communicate without having to say a word.
Her voice was raised just enough to be heard above the low noise level of the club’s main bar area. “What can I get you, Sebastian?”
He smiled and pulled out his phone, opening the club’s app and navigated to his drink code. Holding it out to her, she scanned the QR code from his phone and one of the two alcoholic beverages allowed per visit was removed from his account. “Vodka tonic, extra lime, please.”
Nodding, she got to work on his drink. He knew she was a submissive because he’d seen her wrist cord before when she wasn’t working. He’d also seen her in a few demo scenes. She was a striking woman, with naturally red hair that was cut in a short pixie style, enormous, beautiful green eyes, artfully smoky, with clear gloss on her plump bow lips. Handing over his drink, she smiled again and moved on to her next customer.
He scanned the darkened room, enjoying the view. As he sipped leisurely on his drink, he relaxed. He wasn’t in a hurry, so he left his phone on the bar, instead of perusing the profiles of the new Doms to see if they were available for play. He loved the aesthetics of the enormous club.
This room was dimly lit, as was the whole club, including the locker rooms and the elevators. Sebastian supposed it was for ambiance, but whatever the reason, he loved it, as he could feel more at ease and less on display. Along two walls of the room were large, semi-circular booths, each with a gorgeous burnt orange glass pendant light hanging above it, providing enough lighting to see the other occupants, but only just.
Though it wasn’t a restaurant, along with its vast array of drink options, the bar did serve small, select dishes. Depending on one’s mood, people could order cocktails and fancy hors d’oeuvres, or specialty coffees and pastries. Sebastian thought of the room as the heart of the club. It was the place people came to meet up, to socialize. There was always a quiet hum of energy, and everyone, following some unspoken rule, kept their voices pitched low.
In addition to the booths, there were seating areas dispersed throughout the whole room surrounding a moveable center stage that held nightly scenes. They were either scenes between Doms and their subs who wanted an audience, or between Club Masters and subs in order to demonstrate a particular implement or kink request. The stage was used sometimes once, sometimes twice a night, and otherwise could be used at whim by people spontaneously wanting to have a scene where others could watch or participate. He’d never gotten up on the stage and didn’t have any desire to do so.
The area, when not used for demos or scenes was mostly used for visiting, a gathering place for before or after play. What Sebastian loved most was the occasional glimpse of a Dom giving his sub aftercare. It wasn’t the only place for it, but when it happened, everyone respected the Dom’s space and gave the couple privacy. He’d often get caught up watching those private interludes, recognizing it for what it was, yearning. As he continued to sip his drink his gaze fell on such a couple.
He watched as the Domme took care of her female submissive. The scene was intimate, the Domme, a statuesque woman in red leather pants, black spiked heels, and a gorgeous black corset, leaned back on a low slung leather sofa, her tiny sub curled up in her lap, blanket wrapped around her. Sebastian watched as the Domme murmured quietly to the sub, Sebastian seeing the sub’s occasional nod. He smiled as he watched the Domme run her hand over the sub’s hair and ghost her lips over the sub’s forehead. One of the servers approached and brought them both glasses of water. The Domme bringing the straw to her sub’s lips, taking nothing for herself.
“It’s fun to people watch here, isn’t it?”
Even though the comment wasn’t loud, Sebastian hadn’t been expecting anyone to speak to him so he’d nearly jumped out of his skin. He was surprised enough to look directly into the eyes of the man who’d spoken to him, he felt the subtle challenge in the man’s gaze and automatically looked down. Warmth, mostly from embarrassment, colored his cheeks. “Yes, Sir.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
The man glided his hand lightly over Sebastian’s forearm. Something in Sebastian wanted to pull away, but he knew that wasn’t a smart move. Beggars can’t be choosers, after all. So he kept his arm where it was, grabbed his drink with the other, and tossed the remainder of it back. Taryn had apparently been keeping her eye on his drink and approached again. He tapped the rim of his glass, and opened the app, pulling up the QR code. Once it was scanned and he had another drink in his hand, Sebastian turned a little more towards the man who had finally taken his hand off of his arm.
“What’s your name, boy?”
Sebastian shuddered, confused why he didn’t like it when that man called him boy, especially when it was something he usually longed to hear. “Sebastian, Sir.”
“Sebastian, how long have you been a member here?”
“Three months.”
“Mmm, not long then.”
“No. You, Sir?”
“I’m pretty new as well.”
Everything in Sebastian was telling him to move away, but he didn’t dare. He cleared his throat instead. “Oh, just a couple on one of the couches.”
The man jutted his chin out towards the room. “Which one, boy?”
Sebastian felt compelled to glance towards the Domme and her sub again. “The Domme, giving aftercare to her sub, to the left, just there.”
The man stayed in his personal space making goose bumps skitter up his arms. “You into voyeurism?”
Sebastian let out a slow, uneasy breath, trying not to draw attention to the fact that the man made him unusually uncomfortable. “Not particularly, Sir.”
The man sat back in his chair all of a sudden and gave him more space. With that space, he felt more at ease and they continued to chat for a while about the club and its members, about the clothes people were wearing, about his limits, and finally, about the club app.
Things started feeling much better to him, his chest wasn’t tight with anxiety and he began to feel really relaxed. He glanced at his drink and smiled when he realized it was empty. He was happy the alcohol had helped him feel so relaxed. He hadn’t wanted to turn down the one man that had shown him interest in weeks.
“…me what it can do, boy.”
Oops, he’d missed something. “I’m sorry, Sir, what did you say?”
Sebastian was sure he was wrong about the man’s jaw clenching. “You said the app can do so many things. Will you show me what it can do?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
Fumbling with his phone, he slowly keyed in his code. Not exactly feeling nimble-fingered, he chuckled at himself. Shaking his head to clear it, he opened the club’s app, showing the man how he could check in, look at people’s profiles, open his assigned locker, and use codes to get drinks.
He clicked on another icon and opened the floor plan of the club, showing him all three floors. The middle floor was the one with the entrance, the floor above that, housing the private rooms that were purchased by those that could afford the exorbitant prices for a permanent space, and the basement floor where people danced and got crazy and also where people signed out voyeur rooms. He was about to shut it down when the man pointed out a few icons. “What are these?”
“Oh!” Excited to show off what it could do, he clicked one of the icons. “You can actually search to see what rooms are available and when. You can check out rooms from anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours for scenes. Isn’t that cool?”
He grinned and looked at the Dom, expecting to see an impressed look on the man’s face but confused when he was faced with what he thought was annoyance. When the man saw he was looking directly at him, he raised a brow, his expression morphing into a strange smile. “Seriously? How?”
Sebastian nodded his head. “Yeah, uh, like if you click on the private rooms icon, it takes you to a list of the private rooms by name.”
“Private rooms?”
Sebastian cleared his throat. “Yeah. So the rooms downstairs are set up so that people can watch the scenes, and the ones up here are set up so that they are private and no one can watch.”
“How can you tell they’re free?”
Sebastian scrolled through the list and frowned. “Well, none of the private rooms are free right now. Busy night, I guess.”
“And the ones downstairs can’t be private?”
Confused by the questions, Sebastian shrugged. “Uh, well. From what I remember you can make them private by marking it as a closed scene.”
The man nodded. “Are there any of those open?”
Sebastian backed out of the private rooms list to click on the voyeur rooms list and saw the Interrogation Room was open. He tilted his phone towards the man. “Looks like this one’s available, see the green dot next to the room name?”
“Show me how to check it out.”
“Oh, okay. Do you want to get your phone out so you know how next time?”
“Forgot my phone.”
Sebastian frowned. How had he even gotten by Khaleo, without checking in? Confused, he rubbed his palm over his forehead, not sure why things were so muddled. “But, how did you—”
Abruptly, the man stood. Annoyance written across his face. “I guess you aren’t interested in being my sub tonight.”
Sebastian, hearing him say “my sub”—words he so very rarely heard—and seeing his only chance at a scene slipping away, stood up as well. Reaching towards the man to stop him from leaving, he got a bit dizzy and pitched forward into him instead. “I’m sorry, Sir. I’m not sure what’s wrong. Please, I want to scene with you. Let me check out that room.”
Sebastian, fingers moving slowly not understanding why he felt so strange, was startled when the phone was pulled out of his hands. He watched as the man checked out the room and listed it as closed for observation. Another of those strange smiles ghosted over the Dom’s face. “There, now we’ll have privacy for a couple hours.”
Sebastian smiled, no one usually wanted to spend that long with him. Maybe he had found someone that would want him more than one time. “Thank you, Sir.”
The man merely grunted and headed towards the alcove that hid the stairs and elevator. Once they got into the elevator and were headed down, the Dom turned his way. “Where is the Interrogation Room?”
Sebastian held his tongue again when he wanted to question why the man didn’t know where he was going or seem to know what he was doing. “We’ll come out in the main bar area downstairs, turn to the right, and head back into the hallway where all of the voyeur rooms are located.”
When the elevator doors slid open with a soft ding, they both stepped out into the alcove and walked into the main bar area called the Liberation Room. The Dom turned to head towards the voyeur rooms and Sebastian bumped into someone when he rounded the corner. He gasped and nearly fell. The Dom turned and threw him a dirty look, grabbing his arm above his leather wrist cuff and pulling him into his side. Sebastian turned back to apologize to whoever he’d bumped into and saw the club’s trainer/manager watching him. He pasted a happy smile on his face and waved, mouthing “sorry” and hoping he didn’t draw any more attention to himself.
The Dom pulled him along, arm wrapped around his waist, squeezing him a bit too tightly. When they got to the room, he tried to open it, but it was locked. “What the fuck?”
Sebastian couldn’t help it, he sniggered, pulling out his phone. “You have to get the temporary room code that’s assigned to you when you check the room out.”
Again, the phone was yanked out of his hand and the arm wrapped around him was removed as the man entered his phone code. What? “Hey… How’djaknow—”
The Dom narrowed his eyes challengingly at Sebastian. “Don’t you remember telling me?”
“What? No. I—” Another wave of dizziness hit him and he leaned on the wall. He tried to sort out his jumbled thoughts but couldn’t remember them talking about his phone code. “I don’t think—”
“There we go. Come on, boy. Let’s have some fun.”
When Sebastian hesitated, the man grabbed his upper arm and propelled him inside, shutting the door behind him with a slam. Sebastian stumbled and nearly fell, thinking to himself that he wasn’t having any fun at all.
GIDEON MADE HIS WAY AROUND the Liberation Room, thus named because it was a place of complete liberation and physical abandon. The only rule in the room was there was no domination and submission play, nothing that would require a safeword, because it would never be heard nor seen there.
The music was deep and full of the vibration and thump of the bass, people writhed on the dance floor, fucked against the wall, made out in the booths, and gave head in the corners. There were no tools of the trade allowed; no whips, handcuffs, or ball gags. Nothing but an enormous dance floor surrounded by booths, tables and chairs, sofas and armchairs.
/> He’d wanted to create a place where people could go wild and be free to be themselves, even if this was the only place they’d ever have that feeling. At first, he’d worried that people would get out of control, and always had undercover bouncers mingled with the others on the dance floor, keeping an eye on things.
Strangely enough, the room he thought would give him the most trouble, caused him the least amount. It seemed that just the simple fact that he’d provided the place for people to go wild, kept everyone from becoming out of control. It was a strange feeling of giving and receiving respect in turn, and he hadn’t regretted creating the space for it once.
He had no doubt that the two-drink club limit was a big part of what kept things under control. He often found himself down there more often than not. When he remained upstairs, in the Tranquility Room, he was constantly being approached by submissives desiring his attention.
He wouldn’t run himself through subs at his own club. He scened with them, he did a lot of demos, and he kept his eye on the goings on around every single inch of his club, but he remained set apart. It kept him in check, kept his strongest desires at bay, but allowed him to feel a part of it regardless.
He admitted to himself that he felt a strange longing to be in the throng of dancers, participating in the sexual free-for-all, but being the owner both allowed him to keep himself removed mentally and required him to keep himself distant physically. It was enough, for now, to be involved peripherally. If that changed in the future, so be it, but keeping himself removed kept him in his comfort zone and others from getting too close.
As he rounded the dance floor for a third time, checking on the writhing bodies and the couples and throuples making use of the couches and booths, he heard his club manager, Roarke Ramirez, speak to him through their security earpiece. “Master G, I need you to meet me at the Interrogation Room, immediately.”