by Doucette, G
“Not very seriously. This is like playtime S&M. The real stuff is more hardcore and a lot more private, with less actual sex.” Olive turned to Lindy. “You interested?”
“How do you mean?”
She smiled. “You know how I mean, Burgundy, don’t play dumb. Some people are subs, some are doms, some aren’t either. Which are you?”
“I guess I don’t know.”
The man on the couch leaned forward and cupped the woman’s chin in his hand. He whispered something in her ear, and she came. It was an electric burst of trembling energy, her back stiff and chin up, not falling only because his hand was behind her head now, holding her up until it was over. Then she was leaning forward with her head in his lap as he played with her hair.
What did he say to her? she wanted to know. What words could have done that?
Lindy kept expecting to be appalled by this display, but all she felt was excitement and an irrational need to talk to the couple and figure out what had just passed between them.
She was really turned on.
Olive appeared to have responded similarly, based on her nipples and how interested she was in touching them. “Watching is a trip, right? And being watched is a turn-on, and the masks make all of that possible. You don’t know who I am, and you’re never going to, and that’s why it’s okay for me to be here without a shirt. And why it’s cool for you to keep looking at them. You can touch if you want.”
Olive was talking now about her own breasts, and to that end Lindy did sort of want to. Utterly sober and well past any exploratory phase excuses she concocted to explain that night in the dorm with Tina, she wanted to get a hold of Ms. Olive’s breasts. She wasn’t even sure if it was a sexual impulse or just that they were glorious.
“No, thank you,” she said, somewhat unconvincingly. “I have a pair of my own.”
Olive smiled. “So dom or sub?”
“I don’t know.”
“You saw what I saw, who would you rather have been just then, the one following the commands or the one issuing them?”
“I enjoyed watching.”
“Mmm, so did I, that’s not what I asked. Human beings get aroused by other human beings getting aroused, that’s why the porn industry exists. Like I said, this isn’t an orgy, but it’s a pretty good social experiment, right? Put a bunch of young, open-minded attractive people in a room together, take away the shame and the guilt, toss out a few hints, like a mandatory G-string or a collar, and if that doesn’t do it, put out a bowl full of condoms. Look at what happens.”
Lindy was becoming very curious about what Ms. Olive might do for a living when not prancing around topless.
“So,” Olive said, “you want to obey or be obeyed?”
“I don’t think I want either.”
She nodded. “Like I said, some of us aren’t one or the other.”
“But you’re a sub?”
Lindy had never spoken to anybody about this sort of thing, so she was already drifting into a strange place, comfort-wise. Bondage had been normalized enough as a concept to be reflected in the shoes she was wearing, but while she could comprehend easily enough that dom = dominant and sub = submissive, she had never discussed what it really meant.
“Sometimes. If I don’t meet someone who clicks it’s no big thing.”
“How did this work? That pair, I mean? You’re saying they just met?”
The two were relaxing now. The girl was off her knees and on the couch like a normal person, and they were talking. Save for the masks and the lack of clothing on the girl, they might have been in a coffee shop.
“They didn’t come here together, if that’s what you mean. This isn’t a couples club. I bet you they met earlier tonight.”
“That was a… surprising degree of intimacy for strangers, wasn’t it?”
“Last time I was here,” Olive said, “I spent a good hour talking to my dom about all sorts of things before we got into anything sexual. We covered what I wanted and what he wanted, both liked what we heard, and went from there. But look, this isn’t just that kind of club, all right?”
“So you’ve said.”
“No, well no, I mean it’s not just all about sex, and when it is about sex it’s not just about the dom-sub action. You’re not going to see a lot of chains being used. These are just short-hand for an interest.”
“What did he get out of it?”
“He got to watch, like we did, but she gave him control over her. That’s what he was in it for. Did you see him give her permission to come?”
“Yes, but that’s… crazy.”
Olive smiled. “It’s only crazy if it’s not what you’re into.”
* * *
More people were starting to fill out the floor. The lighting being what it was, their presence was mostly hinted at by shadows moving against the walls, but here and there were glimpses: a fishnet-covered leg, a tattooed shoulder. Heels clattered on the hardwood from different parts of the room, voices in low conversation with occasional explosions of laughter.
Lindy stayed where she was on the couch, sipping from her water bottle and trying to figure out what to do next.
She was not the type to go out and meet strangers in parties. It was something she always used to rely upon Michael to take care of, as the more gregarious of the pair. There were times, when she was being particularly reticent, that he would go out into the crowd, introduce himself to someone he thought she might enjoy talking to and bring them back to her, like a bear catching fish for his mate.
Michael wasn’t there, though, and she was in a place where everyone was supposed to remain strangers even after engaging one another. It was either the perfect party for her or the exact opposite. It was hard to tell which.
“So what are you into?” Olive asked, after a while. They had been sitting quietly and watching people.
“I’m still not sure why I’m here,” Lindy said. It didn’t really answer the question.
Olive got up from her chair and sat down next to Lindy, at an angle, so they could talk comfortably without anyone turning their head. It put her well inside Lindy’s personal space, which was doubly awkward given how little her new total stranger friend was wearing, but she didn’t say anything about it. There were a great many things going on around her that far exceeded her comfort level for a range of reasons that were much more extreme than a topless girl on a couch.
“It’s filling up in here,” Olive said. “I don’t want to have to shout to you over people.”
“Sure, it’s fine.” Lindy inched over to give Olive—whose knee was touching Lindy’s thigh—more room.
“So what is it? You have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend?”
“I did until recently.”
“Aww, I’m sorry.”
“I was thinking… it’s crazy, but I thought that was one of the reasons I got an invitation in the first place. I mean, they couldn’t have really known, but this feels like the kind of club you only get in to if you’re unattached.”
“You may be right. I wasn’t seeing anybody my first time. I’m engaged now.”
“You’re… does he—or she—know about this?”
“No, of course not.”
“But what happens if you get married? I mean, when you get married?”
She shrugged. “I’m assuming I’ll stop getting invitations and they’ll have to find a new Ms. Olive. It’s a shame, right? I love coming here.”
“I wonder if they ever run out of colors.”
Olive laughed. “I think this club might be owned by Crayola. Oh and it’s a he. I like girls too, but I’m engaged to a guy. You?”
“We weren’t engaged. People acted like we were but…. oh, a guy. It was a guy. He’s in the process of moving out.”
The conversation with Vivi came back all at once. She’d managed to put that away, or at least bury it under the acres of strangeness she’d encountered since being dropped off at the door, but now it was back.
“Wh
at happened?” Olive asked.
“I don’t know. People keep asking me what went wrong, and I don’t even know. Is that terrible?”
A man and a woman took up a couch in their little circle. Both were fully clothed, nobody had on any chains, and they looked like they were deep in conversation about something entirely normal. He was in a black suit, a white shirt and a blue tie that matched the blue of his mask, and she had on a modest tan dress and low heels, with a brown mask. They might have been at a church function or in the break room of a downtown office but for the masks. Yet directly over the man’s shoulder she could see the naked sub, now straddling the dom’s lap.
“It had to be something, Ms. Burgundy,” Olive said.
As much as Lindy eyes couldn’t help but find their way to Olive’s revealed breasts, Olive was clearly having the same issue with Lindy’s legs.
“But I don’t know what it was. It wasn’t a fight. He just left and it turns out I was okay with that. Honestly? I think I might be bad at sex.”
Olive laughed loudly enough to draw the attention of the blue-and-brown couple.
“And I can’t believe I said that out loud,” Lindy added.
“C’mon,” Olive said. “Maybe you two just weren’t compatible.”
“We had all the right parts.”
“Interests, sweetie.” As she said this the back of her hand rubbed Lindy’s arm. “Like what he’s offering isn’t anything that turns you on.”
“I guess? Maybe?”
But that was crazy. She and Michael had been together for six years, which was long enough to build a real relationship. It hadn’t been about sex for a really long time.
“Okay,” Lindy said, “maybe sex was part of it, but… we’re just going through a rough patch.”
“So you’re not broken up?”
“No we are, but… how can we break up without there being a reason? That doesn’t even make sense.”
“How about, you just ran out of reasons to stay together?”
Lindy sighed. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Across from them, blue mask and brown mask appeared to be comparing either scars or tattoos. This involved lifting articles of clothing, pointing, and laughing. She wondered if these two were going to end up having sex in front of her like everyone else seemed to be interested in doing.
“This is probably the most unusual conversation I’ve ever had with a naked woman,” Lindy said.
Olive laughed. “All right, I’ll change the subject.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you like girls?”
Lindy coughed up some of her water. “That’s your new subject?”
“It’s a more appropriate conversation to have with a naked girl, don’t you agree?”
“I guess that’s true. Like in what way?”
“You know what way, Ms. Burgundy. Do you like them? Do you like these?” Olive cupped her own breasts and squeezed them.
“I don’t think I do.”
“No? Because, I mean you’ve been looking at them for a while, don’t think I haven’t noticed. You already said you want to touch them. You should.”
“I don’t know if I like girls sexually. But those kind of draw the eye.”
To be specific, they were really spectacular breasts, although Lindy was at a loss as to why these in particular were so interesting. They were neither too particularly large nor too small, occupying some sort of Goldilocks middle ground where they seemed exactly right for the stature and physique of their owner. Ms. Olive was a young enough woman for there to be only a little sag to them, and since she was aroused—clearly—they were a little swollen, which added a perkiness.
Lindy, as she said, did indeed have a pair of her own, but she didn’t think anybody looked at hers the same way they looked at her friend’s.
“I don’t think I ever said I wanted to touch them.”
“But you do, don’t you?”
Yes. “Sort of. But I don’t really know why. I don’t think I’m… that way. Once, sure.”
“So you liked girls once?”
“No, no I mean I did it once. One time,” she said, adding “College” as if that was a complete explanation for same-sex digressions. And perhaps it was.
“Oh, sure. I’m just wondering if the sex thing you’re working through with this guy, if it’s because a guy can’t really get you off.”
Olive’s roaming hand had found Lindy’s, and then they were two girls in different states of undress sitting on a couch and holding hands. Lindy was trying not to overthink it.
“I feel like this is something I would know,” she said. “Like, if M… if he was gay, I would think he’d be aware of this.”
“Sexuality is a spectrum, Ms. Burgundy.”
“I don’t know if I…” Olive stuck the middle finger of Lindy’s hand in her mouth, bit and pulled, taking off the glove. “I don’t know if I agree with that.”
Her bare hand was now on Olive’s bare breast.
“But don’t I feel good?” Olive asked.
Lindy didn’t exactly know what to say, so she didn’t say anything.
A second later, Olive had gotten up onto her knees and leaned forward, and then they were kissing. Lindy’s hands—both gloved and ungloved—were squeezing Ms. Olive’s breasts. And her kisses tasted like peppermint.
“You can tell me to stop if you want to,” Olive said, removing one of her gloves with the flourish of an exotic dancer. Lindy still had no voice to say no with or even to ask what Olive intended to do with that hand. Then the hand was roaming down Lindy’s body to the hem of her skirt, and up her inner thigh.
Across the room, the naked sub atop her dom was enjoying a more traditional expression of intercourse, grinding up and down in the orange-masked man’s lap. Thinking back to when she had fingered herself on the floor aroused Lindy more than watching her now, and almost more than what Ms. Olive was doing to her, which was a thought she would have to unpack carefully later.
Blue and brown stopped talking. They were watching Lindy and Ms. Olive, and holding hands themselves.
Watch, but don’t stare.
“What do I do?” she asked Olive. “I don’t know.”
Her blond friend smiled. “You don’t have to do anything. Here.”
Olive’s fingers slid past the meager covering the G-string underwear offered and entered Lindy. Aroused as she already was, they were met with no resistance.
Olive’s fingers curled inside of her, and Lindy gasped when they tickled her, sliding up and tugging gently.
People can see us, she thought. But the idea that she was being watched made the whole thing feel better, not worse. It was wrong, much more wrong than anything she had ever done, but that was what made it so exciting.
That, and the remarkable dexterity of Ms. Olive’s right hand.
“Okay so far?” Olive asked.
Lindy couldn’t really speak, but she could nod.
“Good,” she smiled.
They kissed again, and then Olive began roaming down Lindy’s body. The fingers came out, and in a second Olive was on the floor between Lindy’s legs, pushing up Lindy’s dress. Soon their brown- and blue-masked neighbors—and everyone else in the room—would get to see a part of Lindy she was unaccustomed to showing in public.
Olive pulled down Lindy’s underwear just enough to give her tongue access. She leaned forward.
“No,” Lindy said. “No, stop.”
Ms. Olive hesitated where she was, not entirely clear she had heard what she thought she had.
“Please stop,” Lindy repeated.
Olive nodded, sat up and rested her head on Lindy’s thigh. “Are you sure?” Her hair was hot with sweat and her eyes alight, and a part of Lindy wanted to give her everything.
“I’m sure. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
Ms. Olive got off her knees and climbed back onto the couch, curling up next to Lindy, whose sitting position had changed to a somewhat m
ore horizontal one.
Lindy pulled down her dress and crossed her legs. Brown and blue went back to their conversation.
With them both half on their backs it felt weirdly like they were lying in bed together, half propped up on pillows as if watching television.
“I just can’t,” Lindy said.
“It’s all right. Really.”
“Should I… I feel like I should do something for you.”
“Nah, it’s okay,” Olive said. She sipped her water. “Unless you want. Actually, I’m really close. If you want to just lie here for a minute, that would be great.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah, unless you want to do more.”
Ms. Olive pulled off her left-hand glove and ran her hand slowly down Lindy’s body again, which Lindy liked just as much as before. Only now Olive’s right hand was in her own crotch.
Her breathing went shallow. Lindy watched her nipples harden again, and her legs open and twitch. Slowly, her back arched and her head tilted back, mouth open. Olive’s left hand, caressing Lindy’s hip and waist, latched onto Lindy’s upper thigh through her dress, and squeezed. Tighter and tighter.
Olive let out a low moan, a high squeal, and a gasp, and nearly bruised Lindy when she came. Then she sighed and exhaled unevenly into a giggle.
“Much better, thank you,” Ms. Olive said. “That was great.”
* * *
They sat there on the couch in the corner for a while, all sweat and sex and—for Lindy—confusion, before Ms. Olive decided it was time for Ms. Burgundy to move on.
“You’ve only seen a small part of the club,” she said. “You should go out and mingle, and, you know, do what there is to do.”
“I’ve seen plenty from here,” Lindy said. And done enough, thanks.
The brown and blue mask couple had by then introduced themselves as Mr. Turquoise and Ms. Auburn, but otherwise had little to offer conversationally. They continued to hold hands and had performed a few acts of light petting, but that was all. Lindy got the sense they were working their way up to something more intimate and graphic, but planned to take their time about it. According to Olive, the party went on all night and into the day, which could explain why it was that Elijah had never picked up anyone from their location. It also explained why Mr. Turquoise and Ms. Auburn didn’t feel like rushing anything along.