by Thea Devine
“And that’s what this is all about—value. We have value, and there are men who want that. So let’s find them. And let’s leave the garbage in the street where it belongs.”
MJ took a long shuddery breath. “Maybe…”
Brooke stepped in. “He said he’s determined to find you, and while I doubt he can, we’ll take precautions. Then once I’m in the Mistress Club—”
“If you’re in,” MJ corrected in a watery voice.
“That’s my old MJ,” Brooke said encouragingly. “When I’m in, I’m going to refer you both as quickly as I can. Baines will seem like a deposed dictator in comparison to the men you’ll meet there.”
Chapter Ten
She had been woefully underdressed last week when she’d impulsively gone to Maîtrise, and Brooke was determined that this time she would positively reek high maintenance.
“Thank goodness for recycle shops,” she said as she discarded this outfit and that before settling on the La Perla underwear, and a top-to-toe white Carlisle ensemble consisting of a puckered jacket, obi-waisted crepe trousers, and a silk tank, a Chanel-like drape of gold, beads and pearls, Celine pumps, and a Prada python bag.
She left her long black hair wild and tumbling, kept her makeup subtle, and her mind on the goal: that coveted membership in the Mistress Club.
She was nervous as hell as she hailed a cab and gave the address of Maîtrise. The doorman appeared the minute she pushed open the door and immediately ushered her into the reception foyer. The elevator was waiting.
It felt very different, as if she were there already, in that rarefied stratosphere of the kept and cosseted.
Oh, Lord, I’m too inexperienced for this…
But, she reminded herself, the alternative was equally unappealing; marriage and matronhood were not for her just yet, and being a frantic single dancing the fuck-and-farewell fandango all over the city was a huge waste of her time.
This was so much better: It was clean, neat, elegant, with the parameters mutually understood and emotions packed away for the duration.
The elevator door opened, and she stepped into the hushed and elegant living room of the Mistress Club.
A minute later, Vanessa entered from a door on the left side of the room.
“Brooke.”
She wore an Italian-made cream-colored jacket today, with a matching whisper-thin jersey pullover and a chiffon skirt in a subtle matching print. Her hair was again pulled into a chignon, her jewelry was minimal, her shoes a coordinating cream color. Everything about her was polished and put together.
She took Brooke’s hand and motioned again to the chairs. “Let’s talk.”
That didn’t sound good. Damn damn damn. Brooke held her head high as she seated herself.
No coffee today. That didn’t bode well.
“Brooke?”
She turned her distracted gaze on Vanessa.
“Everything is fine,” Vanessa said with a smile, and Brooke had the feeling that by everything, Vanessa meant more than her references and her physical well-being. Of course, they would take no chances here. Probably everything was vetted, from the hospital where she’d been born to whether she paid her bills on time.
Vanessa was still speaking. “We can go forward with your membership.”
Brooke blinked. Membership? A weight dislodged from the pit of her stomach, and she smiled.
“If you’re ready,” Vanessa added.
If? What did ready mean? Better not to ask. Just dive in headfirst, and swim. Brooke squared her shoulders. “Of course.”
“Then let’s get started.” Vanessa rose and led the way to that side door, through which they entered a hallway and then a beautifully paneled office where there was a desk and leather side chairs, a suede-covered sofa, and matching tables.
Vanessa indicated the sofa, and Brooke sat while she gathered some papers, pens, and a sleek walnut clipboard from the desk before she joined her.
“As you know, we are extremely particular about our membership. Our goal is to protect all our clients while providing a luxurious and sensually relaxing interpersonal experience in a spa setting, where our members feel utterly pampered, valued, and totally secure.
“To that end, we require some guarantees from our new members. This is a privately owned concern, so any mention of Maîtrise in any context in any tabloid publications would warrant legal action. I’m going to ask you to sign our standard confidentiality agreement, which is to protect all our members.”
Brooke read it quickly. It was a Sturm and Drang contract between her and the corporation that owned Maîtrise, with dire consequences if anything of a private or personal nature pertaining to the guests of the spa or the spa itself were divulged in a public way.
She signed the agreement.
“Excellent,” Vanessa murmured. “Now, with membership, you are provided with your own dressing room key, so you can come and go as you wish.” She handed Brooke a filigree key on a gold chain. Brooke promptly put it around her neck, and Vanessa nodded.
“You may use all the facilities freely. There are no constraints here, no rules. Do whatever feels comfortable to you—it’s your choice. However, we do take some precautionary measures of a different nature.”
She handed a sheet of paper to Brooke. “We’d like to get to know you better. So here, you can indicate some of the things that will give us a clearer picture of your personality. Your likes, your dislikes, your hobbies, your interests.”
Brooke scanned the sheet, her hands shaking. This was it: the go-between moment, the negotiation of privilege and perks, couched in a generic lifestyle questionnaire.
Circle as many as apply, get as much as you can. Nothing specific to mistresses, everything pertaining to monied men looking to protect their interests while they indulged themselves with their own private playthings…
I am: happy, ambitious, easygoing, hard-driving, loving, attentive, affectionate, adaptable.
I like: books, music, sports, theater, shopping, clothes, travel.
My hobbies are: sports (tennis, riding, biking, golf, swimming, running), shopping, crafts, cooking, fashion, antiques, reading, art, travel.
I’m attracted to men who are: successful, older, handsome, rich, athletic, eclectic, self-made, elegant, bookish, take-charge.
In the best of all possible worlds, I would love: beautiful jewelry, a lovely apartment, a catered dinner every night, my rent paid for a year, a luxury trip to Europe, someone to take care of me.
Vanessa took the finished page and scanned it. “Yes. Exactly as I thought.” She tucked the page into a file with the confidentiality agreement. “Now, we like all our new members to experience all the lavish indulgences available at Maîtrise. So this is your day, Brooke. I’ll take you to your dressing room so you can change. I’d like you to consider a partial Brazilian—you’ll love it, and our staff are very skilled at that service. After, we’d like to take pictures for our membership roster. But take as much time as you wish before that and enjoy all the benefits of your membership at Maîtrise.”
The dressing rooms were on the second floor, just off the elevator. Hers was as large as a bedroom, with a walk-in closet, a chaise lounge, tables, paintings, soft lighting, and a lovely old Oriental rug.
“This will be your dressing room,” Vanessa told her. “Please…”
Brooke disrobed and put on the diaphanous gown that was hanging on a padded hanger in the closet. It covered nothing; she might as well have been naked. She had the distinct impression, as Vanessa eyed her with approval, that most members chose to be.
Up to the third floor. Here there was a long corridor with two sets of folding doors.
“Our male clients enjoy the gentlemen’s club”—Vanessa gestured to her left—“while our ladies choose from a variety of spa treatments designed to enhance and beautify their bodies. This aspect is not co-ed. Welcome to Maîtrise, Brooke.”
She pulled open the door to the spa and Brooke had the instant impress
ion of light. Everything at Maîtrise seemed to reflect bright, soft light and sybaritic comfort. No salon chairs here; only plump overstuffed club chairs and thick padded benches. Ethereal privacy curtains. Mirrors reflecting back the beautiful surroundings inhabited by beautiful people.
Every spa service she could conceive of was available here, and a half dozen women her age were already enjoying them.
And every practitioner was male, nearly naked but for a silk loincloth wrapped around his waist.
Vanessa brought her to Baskhar, who had extremely capable hands and musculature to be envied. “Baskhar is our waxer extraordinaire.”
He motioned her onto the padded bench, and Brooke hesitated. On a table beside him were the implements of his trade, disguised in expensive stone jars to prevent his clients from knowing exactly what they were in for.
Don’t think. Be a woman of the world, even if you feel like a babe in the woods.
She hoisted herself onto the bench and lay back. Baskhar gently pushed apart her legs to examine her thoroughly. “Very nice. We expose lips.”
Almost instantly, she felt warm wax being painted onto her exposed cleft, and she forcibly quelled her panic. It was just a wax job, for heaven’s sake.
Then he pulled sharply. And it hurt.
Baskhar denuded only her vaginal opening; he left the hair between her thighs but trimmed it.
“Men love mystery,” he said impersonally. He spread her legs wider and grunted.
“Nice. Let me see arms, legs.”
The torture went on. But it was soothed afterward with a honeyed oil massage between her legs. She’d never had such a thing, or such a dispassionate treatment of her nether parts as Baskhar stroked and patted her mound with a magician’s touch.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, when Vanessa reappeared. “Take picture. Lie still.”
“What?” Brooke struggled to sit up.
“Be still. Men love to see before they buy.” Baskhar spread her legs, and a minute later her nakedness was digitized close up.
After that, she gave herself over to an afternoon of pampering. Every service she could possibly want that enhanced, perfumed, and softened her body was hers for the asking.
And she asked. For MJ’s sake, she had to experience everything.
She took a hydrating steam bath, had a hot-stone massage, an herbal facial.
They did her hair, her makeup, her hands, her feet; then she was pulled, pummeled, and polished on top of that. She could have stayed there forever, luxuriating, but Vanessa came for her.
“Our lounge is on the fifth floor,” she said, “where our members love to relax after a day of pampering. You might enjoy a drink, some conversation, some quiet time. Leave your gown here, I have some adornments for you.”
Adornments proved to be dangling gold earrings, a thin gold chain to drape over her hips, and gold stiletto sandals.
Oh, God, Vanessa really was going to make her parade around naked? She couldn’t do naked. She could do modestly revealing. She could do transparent dressing gown. But naked—?
“This is all you need to wear,” Vanessa said. “This, and your hard, pointy nipples. Come.”
Brooke looked down at her breasts, faintly appalled by the notion that her erect nipples were adornments.
How awful could it be, to walk around naked and talk to people?
Vanessa was waiting. Brooke tripped down the hallway after her to the elevator on those four-and-a-half-inch wobbling stilettos.
“I trust everything is fine,” Vanessa said, pressing the number five on the brass keypad.
“Everything’s lovely.” Not. But she owed it to Delia and MJ to follow through on this. And to redefine her own boundaries—because she’d breached them a half dozen times already at least.
But naked? She hadn’t expected that.
The elevator doors opened. Once again, her first impression was light—the huge room was sun-flooded from skylights and windows. Everywhere there were plush sofas and chairs scattered around, with men and women occupying them, engaged in conversation, relaxation, or lustful petting.
There was a bar along the far wall where guests were ordering drinks, doors on the opposite wall, and a pool table at the far end, and opposite, a long table full of canapés for nibbling.
“Here we are. Enjoy yourself, Brooke.”
The doors closed on Vanessa, leaving Brooke feeling as if she’d been caught with her pants down.
No one was looking, particularly. The women here were all dressed in variants of Brooke’s adornments: ankle bracelets, golden cuffs, thrall collars, wispy cutout bras, or thongs, everyone in sky-high strappy sexy sandals, every woman as sleek as a purring kitten and treating her nudity as if she were fully dressed in subtly sexy clothing.
Brooke didn’t know quite what to do, so she edged her way into the room and over to the bar.
“You’re new,” the bartender said. He was bare-chested, but she couldn’t see whether he was bare all the way down. Probably he was wearing that loincloth; most of the male guests were in silk dressing gowns.
He looked way too young to be working in a venue like this, but she had the feeling he was inured to it. He’d barely given her body a glance, and he kept his gaze determinedly on her face.
“Yes, as of today.” She ordered a Perrier with lemon. “I’m Brooke.”
“Well hello, Brooke. Welcome to the wind-down room, where your mission is to rev up the guests. My advice: Find someone who looks likely and start a conversation. You’re never more interesting than when they think someone else wants you.”
She took the goblet he handed her. “Thanks.”
She looked around the room. The men were older than she’d imagined, some of them reading the paper, some just sitting with their heads back, one or two deep in conversation, another on his cell phone.
The women were either talking to each other or to the gentlemen, or cuddling with them in a dark corner.
None of the men were particularly handsome or fit, the way she’d always imagined they would be.
Reality check: Powerful men who have the means to support a mistress do not necessarily look like Hugh Steffen. They looked like every man, and Brooke didn’t know if she was disappointed or relieved.
She made her way to a grouping of chairs near the window, where one of the men seemed nicely absorbed in his Wall Street Journal.
So here I am…
She studied the man opposite her, who was so intent on his stock figures. He was wearing a dressing gown; he was tall, swarthy, with thinning gray hair, thin lipped, barrel chested and long legged: And there was something about him. She didn’t want to call it magnetism or charisma, but she had the feeling he didn’t suffer fools and that he had a very strong, controlling hand on whatever boat he was steering.
What about someone like him?
What about him?
He looked up, almost as though he could hear her thoughts, and his eyes glanced off hers. Hooded eyes, thick brows, strong nose, high cheekbones. An aura of controlled power. A nod and then back to his paper.
I failed.
She felt a touch on her thigh and looked up. It was her silent companion. She looked inquiringly at him.
“You’re new here?” His voice was deep and gravelly, his demeanor casual.
“First time ever,” she answered lightly.
“A virgin,” he murmured, his interest palpably sharpening. “As it were.” He held out his hand. “I’m Thane.”
His grip was firm, hard, and very hot. This man pulsed with so much energy that just a handshake threatened to swallow her up.
“Brooke.” She felt consumed already, because there was something predatory in his sudden intense interest.
Oh, Lord, right out of the box…
“Do you mind?” He patted the chair next to her.
This was the crux of the matter, the moment she couldn’t say no—and how she handled him would determine everything that would come later.
�
�Please,” she said, and he set aside his paper and shifted his large body into the chair next to her.
“You’re quite beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
“So this is your first day. What do you think?”
She didn’t know what she thought. Couldn’t remotely divine what he was thinking, except for the obvious. “It’s rather overwhelming.”
“That it is,” he agreed. “I love how pointy your nipples are. I’d ask to fondle them, but this is your first day, and I don’t want to…overwhelm you.”
“Do you think you could?” she retorted sweetly.
“We could explore that option,” he said, “but you’re not ready.”
Not ready? When her body was reverberating like a bowstring, with a Brazilian pulsating between her legs, and naked nipples that responded to words that were as arousing as an evening of foreplay? Why would she have a moment’s hesitation when the goal was already in sight?
“Maybe I am.” She smiled.
He put his hand on her thigh. “I have a feeling you’re not.”
She couldn’t let this opportunity go by. At best, he was attracted to her enough to pursue her; at worst, she could practice on him.
“I’d like to find out,” she said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I?”
“Point taken, Brooke.” He ran his hand up her thigh.
“So how does that work?” Oh, there was a brazen invitation if ever there was one. Not a very elegant approach.
“We’ll just talk for a while,” he said. “I’m not in a big hurry.”
Damn, she’d rushed that fence. “That’s fine,” she said. “I’m not, either.”
“But I like the fact you’re brand-new. I’d like to be the one to try you out.”
What a sly fox, chastising her for being too forward, then taking the bit and running with it. That told her something about him.
That, and the sudden spurt of his sex underneath his robe.
“I’d like to try you out, too,” she said, slanting a covert look at his bulging erection. He was so big and working heroically to keep it under control. She couldn’t avoid looking at it, and she had the distinct feeling he wanted her to.